James Frith

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.

The Mystery Shopper Service publishes results of the investigations into the cases received on a quarterly basis:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/mystery-shopper-results

The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), are responsible for a wide range of issues affecting older people.

The Cabinet Office does not hold information on the numbers of eligible electors. Local authority registration statistics are accessible from the Office for National Statistics website (www.ons.gov.uk).

The Electoral Commission occasionally publishes estimates of the number of eligible people not included on electoral registers, but not at sub-regional level. The latest report on register completeness and accuracy was produced by the Electoral Commission in 2016 and is available online (www.electoralcommission.org.uk ).

The Government has no plans to lower the voting age, but welcomes the ongoing discussions about this issue. This House has repeatedly debated and then voted against lowering the voting age. Only a handful of countries worldwide allow 16 year olds to vote.

Based on 2018 data, we estimate around 15,000 businesses in England to be in scope of the duty to report on payment practices and performance. The statutory duty was introduced last year and applies to businesses’ first full financial year after 5^th April 2017; we therefore anticipate the majority of reports to be filed in July and October 2018. The Government will be monitoring this first year of results and we encourage anyone who is concerned that a business might not have complied, or may have made a false statement, to raise this by contacting the Department who will deal with concerns confidentially.

In March 2019, the government announced its decision not to extend maintenance loans to part-time distance learners in the 2019-20 academic year. This was on the grounds that the demand for a loan product aimed at part-time distance learners is unlikely to be high enough to make the introduction of such a loan economically viable.

T Levels have been designed to provide a high-quality technical study programme for students aged 16 to 19 to support entry to skilled employment in technical occupations at level 3 and above. We will consider whether they might be appropriate for some adults to study but the current focus of the government and providers is on a successful roll out of these transformational courses to the core 16-19 demographic.

The government will consider the Post-18 Education and Funding review panel’s recommendations carefully and will conclude the review at the Spending Review. The government has not yet taken decisions with regards to the recommendations put forward. Access and successful participation remain a priority for this government and is enshrined in the Higher Education and Research Act 2017. Everyone with the ability to succeed in higher education should have the opportunity, regardless of their background or where they grew up.

We are pleased that employers are choosing to move to our new, higher quality apprenticeship offer to make a sustainable investment in the skills that they need to grow. Employers are designing higher level apprenticeships that take longer and require more off-the-job training and, while this is something to be welcomed, we are conscious of the challenges it presents.

In 2019-20, funding available for investment in apprenticeships in England will be over £2.5 billion, this is double what was spent in 2010-11. The apprenticeship budget is set in advance by Her Majesty’s Treasury for the current spending review period. Currently, we expect to be within budget in the 2018-19 and 2019-20 financial years. We continue to monitor the trend of increasing spending on apprenticeships and to make use of our engagement with employers in addition to all available data from the programme to inform forecasts of demand and future costs.

The level of funding for the programme beyond 2020 will be determined by the forthcoming Spending Review announced by my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his Spring Statement.

I refer the hon. Member for Bury North to the answer I gave on 1 April 2019 to Question 237114.

​In the Autumn Statement last year, my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced that the government would work with employers and providers on the use of the apprenticeship levy after 2020.

We have been looking at how organisations have responded to the introduction of the levy and associated reforms as well as how we can help develop future demand for, and provision of, apprenticeships. We have also been exploring the impact of the levy across different sectors and regions and for different types of apprentices as well as the contribution of apprenticeships to the wider skills landscape.

Over the past few months, we have used a number of channels, including a survey and regional roundtables across England, to work with a range of different employers, providers and representative organisations. We will continue to listen to the views of employers and providers in the run-up to the Spending Review.

The government’s commitment to inclusive education of disabled children and young people and the progressive removal of barriers to learning and participation in mainstream education is at the heart of the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system. We have made substantial reforms to strengthen the SEND system in recent years, to improve the identification and meeting of the needs of children and young people and to improve families’ experiences of the system. As part of this, the Children and Families Act (2014) secured the general presumption in law of mainstream education in relation to decisions about where children and young people with SEND should be educated, complementing the protections in the Equality Act (2010) against disability discrimination.

Recent steps we have taken to help disabled children and young people reach their full potential in mainstream education include the fact that we have been closely monitoring the pressures on high needs budgets and have provided additional high needs funding for local authorities, alongside their 2019-20 Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) allocations: a further £125 million in 2018-19 and £125 million of high needs funding for 2019-20.

We are investing £365 million in the Special Provision Capital Fund from 2018 to 2021, helping local authorities create new school places and improve existing facilities for children and young people with SEND. This capital funding is not ring-fenced and local authorities can use it as they see fit to improve special provision in their local areas. The funding can be invested in a range of settings, including mainstream and special schools or academies. We have required local authorities to publish their plans on how they use this funding, and these show that many local authorities intend to expand their specialist provision in mainstream schools.

We recognise the importance of staff in mainstream schools having the skills to identify and meet the needs of pupils with SEND. This is why, for example, we have awarded a 2 year, £3.4 million contract to the Whole School SEND Consortium, led by Nasen, to deliver a programme of work to drive education institutions to prioritise SEND and equip schools to identify and meet the relevant training needs of their workforce. We have also funded the Autism Education Trust since 2011 to deliver autism awareness training to education staff in early years, schools and further education settings. This training has so far reached more than 195,000 people - not just teachers and teaching assistants, but also support staff such as receptionists, dining hall staff and caretakers, encouraging a ‘whole school’ approach to supporting pupils with autism. We are also reviewing the current SEND content in the Initial Teacher Training provision (ITT) and building on our existing SEND specialist qualifications to develop a continuum of learning from ITT, through teachers’ early careers and into specialist and leadership roles in support of the upcoming Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy.

Our ambition for children with special educational needs (SEN) and disabilities is exactly the same as it is for all children – we want them to be able to do their best in school and reach their potential, including in free schools.

As part of our commitments under the United Nations Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, we are committed to inclusive education of disabled children and the progressive removal of barriers to learning and participation in mainstream education. The Children and Families Act 2014 secures the general presumption in law of mainstream education in relation to decisions about where children with SEN should be educated; and the Equality Act 2010 provides protection from disability discrimination. The SEN system rightly places considerable weight on the views of parents as to where a child with complex needs should be educated. While many parents of disabled children choose mainstream education, others will want a specialist setting. Some children have complex SEN that mean that the best educational experience for them is in a school that specialises in meeting those needs. For them, a special school is a positive choice.

We have opened new special schools through the free schools programme: as of 1 January 2019, there are 34 open special free schools, and a further 55 special free schools have been approved to open in the future.

The Department has not mandated the use of Project Bank Accounts on any of its infrastructure contracts in the last year. The Department has considered the use of Project Bank Accounts on infrastructure contracts, but due to the specific nature and size of procurements and contracts, there are compelling reasons not to mandate its use.

Changes were introduced to the Teachers’ Pension Scheme in April 2018 to allow for the equalisation of survivor benefits for widows. This Scheme followed the Supreme Court’s determination in the case of Walker v Innospec Limited in 2017.

Since then, the Department has received two representations from scheme members, regarding equalisation for widowers of opposite sex marriages.

The requested data is shown in the attached table.

Results for academic year 2017/18 are due to be published on Thursday 29 November.

Maintained Nursery Schools (MNS) make a valuable contribution to improving the lives of some of our most disadvantaged children. In the last three months, there have been nine representations led by MNS, one by an education trade union and two by education charities.

Representations made include the case for future funding and the sharing of research findings.

Maintained nursery schools (MNS) make a valuable contribution to improving the lives of some of our most disadvantaged children, including those with special needs and disability (SEND). Many of them also provide specialist SEND support to other providers.

In recognition of the costs that MNS experience over and above other providers, we are providing supplementary funding – additional to funding received under the Early Years National Funding Formula (EYNFF) – of around £60 million a year. This will enable local authorities to protect MNS pre-EYNFF funding levels until at least 2019-20.

In deciding what should happen after 2019-20, we want to ensure that decisions about the future of MNS are based on evidence. Therefore, we have commissioned new research on the value offered by MNS, which will be published over the winter.

The information requested is not held centrally.

As part of the T Level panels, employers are at the heart of the programme and they play a key role in developing the outline content for the new programmes. We have also provided £5 million to the National Apprenticeship Service, who have widened their remit to offer an advice and support service for employers. This includes raising awareness and promoting the benefits of T Levels and industry placements to employers, including those that may not be actively engaged in education and training activities.

As we move closer to delivery in 2020, we will increase the scale and pace of our communications with providers and employers to raise awareness of T Levels and how they fit in with other post-16 choices.

We have put in place a range of measures to make sure that employers are supported to offer T Level industry placements. This includes the National Apprenticeships Service who will provide a dedicated and fully trained team of account managers to provide advice and support to employers, and broker links with local education providers delivering industry placements during the current academic year. Education providers are receiving capacity and delivery funding in 2018-19 and 2019-20 to support their work with employers to deliver industry placements. In academic year 2017/18, we ran a pilot to test potential models for industry placements and understand delivery challenges and how to overcome them. This ran with 21 post 16 providers and up to 2000 students were involved with over 1000 employers offering placements in the 2017/18 academic year. The department has recently published a suite of online guidance and materials based on the learnings from this pilot to assist both providers and employers in delivering placements. We are establishing this support well in advance of the first T Levels being delivered in 2020.

Officials at the Department have held a number of discussions with the Confederation of British Industry, the Federation of Small Businesses and the British Chamber of Commerce with the purpose of increasing awareness and understanding of the new GCSEs. The Department has also worked with these organisations to communicate the new GCSE grading scale to employers, via the Department’s online factsheets and videos.

Ofqual, the independent qualifications regulator, has also worked with these organisations and other employer groups to support employer understanding. Ofqual published a report on perceptions of the new GCSEs in April 2018. The findings showed that awareness amongst businesses of the 9 to 1 grading scale had doubled from 32% in the previous survey in April 2017, to 68% this year.

Ministers regularly meet employer groups to discuss a range of issues.

The attached tables give the percentage of permanent and fixed period exclusions for pupils with and without special educational needs (SEN), and the percentage of exclusions of pupils with SEN that were recorded with a reason of 'Other'. The figures cover academic year 2016/17, figures for 2017/18 are not yet available.

We publish the number of children who were refused an Education, Health and Care assessment by local authority in the annual statistics publication ‘Statements of SEN and EHC plans’: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-special-educational-needs-sen.

The current arrangements for funding pupils with special educational needs (SEN) in mainstream schools were introduced in 2013. Local authorities are required to allocate funds to schools to a level that enables them to meet the additional cost of pupils with SEN up to £6,000 per annum. This ensures that funding follows pupils to the schools that provide their education and SEN support, and also that there are not perverse incentives for schools to label children as having SEN to attract funding for additional support that is not needed.

The new national funding formula for schools distributes the majority of funding to local authorities on the basis of pupil numbers and characteristics. Local authorities then fund schools under a local formula that allocates funding to schools based on their pupils and their characteristics. Factors such as the number of pupils with low attainment in the previous phase of their education act as a proxy for the level of SEN in a school. When the costs of additional support required for a pupil with SEN exceed £6,000, the local authority should allocate additional top-up funding to cover the excess costs. This top-up funding follows the pupil for as long as they are at the school and require additional support at that level. Similarly, pupils with SEN in special schools also receive top-up funding from an authority’s high needs budget to cover costs in excess of special school place funding.

We continue to keep these arrangements under review to make sure that resources are directed where they are needed to support children and young people with SEN.

My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State frequently meets Treasury Ministers, including my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer to discuss matters of shared interest.

High needs funding is a priority for the Government. Last year, the Department provided £130 million in additional funding for high needs, and a further £142 million this year. Nationally, high needs funding has risen from a total of £5 billion in 2013-14 to £6 billion in 2018-19.

The Department is monitoring the impact of the national funding formula for high needs on local authority spending decisions, and is keeping the overall amount of funding for high needs under review.

Once T Levels are fully rolled out there will be over £500 million additional funding per year for their delivery. This extra funding will pay for extended industry placements and the additional taught hours that will be needed for T Levels. Nearly £60 million of this funding has already been allocated to providers to help them build capacity for the improved industry placements that will form part of the new T Levels. The funding also includes up to £20 million to help teachers and leaders prepare for the implementation of T Levels. We are currently considering how best to provide this support, and information we gather from the data collection launched on 25 May will help to inform this.

We are confident that T Levels will provide a substantial boost to national productivity and the life chances of many thousands of young people. As we introduce the technical education routes, we will explore value for money in a number of ways, including through commissioning an evaluation of the new routes and monitoring performance and destination data.