Asked by: Joe Morris (Labour - Hexham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking through Young Futures Hubs to help tackle violence against women and girls.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government has set an ambitious target to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. To achieve this, we plan to reduce the current levels of offending and reoffending and prevent abuse from happening altogether.
This focus on prevention also sits at the heart of the Young Futures programme, which will establish a network of Young Futures Hubs and Young Futures prevention partnerships.
Young Futures Hubs will be set up across the country, bringing together services to improve access to opportunities and support for young people at community level, promoting positive outcomes and enabling young people to thrive.
Young Futures Prevention Partnerships will bring local partners together to intervene earlier to ensure that vulnerable children at-risk of being drawn into a variety of crime types (including anti-social behaviour, knife crime and violence against women and girls) are identified and offered support in a more systematic way.
Officials from across government, including my department, the Home Office, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Department for Health and Social Care and the Ministry of Justice are working together using their various bodies of evidence of what works to shape Young Futures Hubs.
Asked by: Joe Morris (Labour - Hexham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many primary school children are eligible for free school meals in (a) the North East and (b) Hexham constituency.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department publishes the number of pupils in primary schools who are eligible for free school meals (FSM). The most recent figures, including regional level data, can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-pupils-and-their-characteristics.
Parliamentary constituencies are based on their boundaries at the time of the January school census each year, therefore, the 2024 Parliamentary boundaries do not reflect the changes made in the summer of 2024.
Where statistics were published prior to the changes in Parliamentary constituency boundaries, they will be updated to reflect the new boundaries in the next publication of statistics. This is expected to be in June 2025 for the ‘Schools, pupils and their characteristics’ publication.
FSM data is published at school level. This can be combined with information from ‘Get Information About Schools’ (GIAS) to identify parliamentary constituency. GIAS currently reflects the changes made following the general election Parliamentary constituency changes. Updates to geographical data are made on a quarterly basis using data published by the Office for National Statistics.
Asked by: Joe Morris (Labour - Hexham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many children requiring SEND support did not attend school in each council ward in Northumberland in each of the last five academic years.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The requested information is not held centrally.
The department collects information on children who are electively home educated (EHE) from local authorities on a voluntary basis. The latest figures can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/elective-home-education.
The department also collects data on children missing education (CME) from local authorities on a voluntary basis. These are children of compulsory school age not registered at school or otherwise receiving suitable education. The latest figures can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/children-missing-education.
Information on the number of children in EHE in Northumberland between 2021/22 and 2022/23 is available in the following table: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/d158d673-76e2-4aab-a0f2-08dcfae39e23. Information on the number of CME in Northumberland between 2021/22 and 2022/23 is available in the following table: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/d86675e8-9537-4727-a0ed-08dcfae39e23. As data was collected from local authorities for the first time in autumn 2022, information is not held for prior time periods. Additionally, EHE and CME data is not available at council ward level.
In autumn 2023/24, 15% of all EHE children had an additional requirement of special educational needs (SEN) support and 8% of all CME had an additional requirement of SEN support. This compares with 13% for the overall school population in January 2023.
The Children’s Wellbeing Bill will legislate for local authority registers of children not in school. This will include a duty on parents to provide the necessary information for these registers if their child is eligible. These proposals are intended to help local authorities identify all children not in school in their areas, including those that may require SEN support, so they can ensure children are receiving a safe and suitable education.