Ian Sollom

Academies are required to have a complaints procedure in place that adheres to Part 7 of the Education (Independent School Standards) Regulations 2014. Where parents or carers have concerns, they should first approach the academy, and it is their responsibility to handle and resolve complaints. If a complainant has concerns that an academy did not handle a complaint in line with the regulations, they can then escalate to the department, whose role it is to consider whether the academy followed the correct process.

For members of the wider community who do not have a child at the academy, the regulations do not apply. However, the department still expects academies to handle complaints swiftly and respectfully.

My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education holds academies to a high level of accountability through their funding agreement. Where wider concerns are raised, for example, as a result of poor governance or lack of compliance with the framework, the department will intervene proportionately to ensure compliance.

As part of the King’s Speech, we have committed to legislate to require all schools, including academies, to cooperate with the local authority on school admissions and place planning, and to give local authorities greater powers to deliver their function and ensure that admissions decisions account for the needs of the community.

In July, my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, announced a short review of qualifications reform. The rapid review is focused on Level 3 qualifications currently scheduled to have funding removed on 31 July 2025.

The department understands the need to provide certainty to the sector, students and parents about what qualifications will be available in the 2025/26 academic year.

The department is working as quickly as possible to provide clarity to the sector, which is why we moved immediately to pause the defunding due to happen from August this year and will conclude and communicate outcomes of the review by the end of the calendar year. This will enable schools and colleges to reflect the outcomes of the review in their delivery planning and marketing materials in the new year.

It is also worth noting that large portions of qualifications are unaffected by the review and provide certainty to the sector. These include A levels and T Levels, new alternative academic qualifications, new technical occupational qualifications, and the qualifications in the subjects, routes and qualification types not covered by the defunding lists, including further applied general qualifications.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has a statutory role in leading government policy on food safety, including in gathering evidence and advising the government.

Following the FSA Board decision in December 2023, FSA officials are progressing a programme of work to evaluate and appraise the options for improving the provision of allergen information for non-prepacked foods, such as food served in restaurants.

The FSA has agreed to keep Defra looped in on this work and any recommendations emerging from it. It would not be appropriate for Defra to comment on any proposals prior to the FSA completing its evaluation and appraisal of policy options.

Any new legislation needs to be carefully considered, taking into account the views of all stakeholders and the balance of costs and benefits.

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) is committed to providing its customers with the best service possible. DVSA continually reviews its estate to ensure it represents good value for money and is efficient.

The Department ran a call for evidence from October to December 2023 seeking views on three potential options on weight limits for VCMs. Any potential changes to the current policy position on VCM weight limits will need to consider the implications for road safety, infrastructure, the environment, and maintaining fair competition in the market. The Department is currently reviewing the outcomes and will publish its findings in due course.

A principle of child maintenance is to increase levels of cooperation between separated parents and encourage parents to meet their responsibilities to provide their children with financial support.

Where a family-based child maintenance arrangement is not suitable the Child Maintenance Service offers a statutory scheme, Direct Pay and Collect and Pay, for those parents who need it.

To ensure Child Maintenance calculations are accurate the department uses proportionate and cost-effective controls, such as:

• use of verified income from HMRC and benefit systems as outlined in legislation and a principal part of service design.
• use of child benefit systems to verify qualifying child(ren)
• procedures and policy to request additional verification
• a dedicated Financial Investigation Unit who addresses allegations of misrepresentation and fraud
• a robust mandatory reconsideration (MR) and appeals process
• a robust 3 Tier Quality Framework.

The Government is dedicated to ensuring parents meet their financial obligations to children and the Child Maintenance Service will do everything within its powers to make sure parents comply. Where parents fail to pay their child maintenance, the Service will not hesitate to use its enforcement powers, including deductions from earnings orders, removal of driving licences, disqualification from holding a passport, and committal to prison. The Service is committed to using these powers fairly and in the best interests of children and separated families.

The Department publishes quarterly statistics for the Child Maintenance Service. Please refer to tables 4, 5, 6.1 and 6.2 of the National Tables for data on child maintenance arrangements and collection. national-tables-child-maintenance-service-to-june-2024.ods

On the 26 February 2024, regulations came into place to remove the £20 Child Maintenance Service application fee as part of the Government’s response to help with the cost-of-living increase.

This has resulted in an increase in applications in the quarter to March and June 2024. In the quarter ending June 2024 there were 39,000 new applications, an increase of 6,400 applications compared with the quarter to June 2023.

The Department publishes quarterly statistics for the Child Maintenance Service. Please refer to table 1 and 2 of the national tables for data on applications and intake national-tables-child-maintenance-service-to-june-2024.ods

Additionally, the DWP was given the legal power to write off low level debt under £7.00 (£6.99 and less), where a Direct Pay and Collect and Pay case has closed, there is no ongoing liability, and no payment has been received in the previous 90 days.

Since the reform was introduced, the DWP has written off low level debt which was not cost effective for the service to chase. Therefore, this has protected the cost to the public.

The DWP is still committed to gathering debt and has recently consulted on new measures to improve enforcement. The results of this consultation will be published in due course.

The Child Maintenance Service does not hold data on the timeliness of payments; however, we do hold data on the number of Child Maintenance arrangements on the statutory scheme and the collection of maintenance.

The Department publishes the quarterly statistics for the Child Maintenance Service. Please refer to tables 4 and 5 of the National Tables for data on child maintenance arrangements and collection: national-tables-child-maintenance-service-to-june-2024.ods

The Department is dedicated to ensuring parents meet their financial obligations to children and the Child Maintenance Service will do everything within its powers to make sure parents comply.

In the year to June 2024 there were 138,000 new applications to the Child Maintenance Service, an increase of 10% since June 2023.

The Department’s most recently published statistics show that 76% of applications received were cleared within 6 weeks (up to the quarter ending March 2024).

The Department publishes quarterly statistics for the Child Maintenance Service. Please see tables 1 and 2 of the national tables for more information on applications.

Additional resources have been deployed to process new applications in order to meet increased customer demand. Service Modernisation improvements have been made to processes and systems to increase automation and allow both receiving and paying parents to manage their application online. This allows us to serve them faster as well as freeing up resources to help customers who need greater support.

The aim of the Child Maintenance Service is to create a modern accessible service through our digital transformation and Service Modernisation programmes, to allow our customers to have greater choice of how and when they contact us.

Through our digital transformation programme, almost all applications are now made online, and we have more than doubled My Child Maintenance Case (MCMC) registrations. 1.46 million customers now have access to our service 24/7 through their online accounts, with over 1.12 million logins in September 2024.

Every change and improvement made to our processes, systems, and service are all part of modernising our service. This will be an ongoing process of continuous improvement to make Child Maintenance Service more accessible to all parents.

As part of the Government’s reforms to the Child Support Collection (Domestic Abuse) Act receiving Royal Assent on 29 June 2023, the Child Maintenance Service removed the £20 application to ensure families on the lowest incomes do not face a barrier to accessing the service. The Government consultation on remaining reforms has concluded. We are in the process of finalising the details of the consultation and aim to publish it as soon as possible on gov.uk.