Asked by: Jonathan Lord (Conservative - Woking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to equalise the level of schools funding for local authorities.
Answered by Nick Gibb
In August, the Department announced a school funding settlement, providing for an increase of over £14 billion for primary and secondary schools, in total, over the next three years. The £14 billion means the Department can ‘level up’ school funding by raising the minimum per pupil funding for secondary schools to £5,000 next year, and the minimum per pupil funding for primary schools to £3,750 in 2020-21 and £4,000 in 2021-22.
Average school funding is increasing by 5% next year – a significant increase - and the Department is allocating the biggest increases for the lowest-funded schools. In addition, every school in England can see an increase in per pupil funding at least in line with inflation, with most schools attracting real terms increases.
This settlement comprises cash increases of £2.6 billion for 2020-21, £4.8 billion for 2021-22 and £7.1 billion for 2022-23 compared with 2019-20. As part of this, the high needs budget will rise by over £700 million in 2020-21 compared to this year, which is equivalent to an increase of over 11%.
In delivering this settlement, this Government is giving all young people the best opportunities to succeed - regardless of where they grow up or go to school.
Asked by: Jonathan Lord (Conservative - Woking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to improve rates of teacher (a) recruitment and (b) retention.
Answered by Nick Gibb
In January the Department launched the Government’s first ever integrated strategy to recruit and retain more teachers in schools, developed alongside teachers, education unions and leading professional bodies.
This landmark strategy includes the biggest teaching reform in a generation, the Early Career Framework (ECF), providing the solid foundations for a successful career in teaching, backed by at least £130 million a year in extra funding when fully rolled out. As part of the ECF’s package of support, the Department has committed to funding and guaranteeing 5% off-timetable in the second year of teaching for all early career teachers; early career teachers will continue to have a 10% timetable reduction in their first year of induction. The Department will also fully fund mentor training and fund time for mentors to support early career teachers.
The Department recognises it needs to take significant action on starting salaries and early career pay over the medium-term to address our pressing recruitment and retention challenges. This is why the Department has set out plans to significantly raise starting pay to £30,000 by September 2022.
The Department has also put in place a range of measures, including bursaries worth up to £26,000 for priority subjects, to encourage graduates to teach key subjects such as languages and physics.
The Department is also offering retention incentives in priority subjects to ensure we are keeping those teachers in the classroom. These include early-career payments for new chemistry, languages, maths and physics teachers and a student loan reimbursement scheme for languages, science and computing teachers.
Asked by: Jonathan Lord (Conservative - Woking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of children were eligible for free school meals in (a) Woking and (b) Surrey in the past year.
Answered by Michelle Donelan - Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
The number and proportion of children in schools in Woking constituency and Surrey local authority who were eligible for and claiming free school meals (FSM) is given in the table below.
| Number of pupils eligible and claiming FSM | Percentage of pupils eligible and claiming FSM |
Surrey | 13,281 | 8% |
Woking constituency | 1,285 | 9% |
Source: School census, as at January 2019
Figures include pupils in state-funded nursery, primary, secondary and special schools and pupil referral units (including free schools and academy alternative provision).
This data is published at national, regional, local authority and school level in annual ‘Schools, pupils and their characteristics’ statistical release. The 2019 publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2019.
Asked by: Jonathan Lord (Conservative - Woking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to increase entrepreneurship and business education in schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
There are a number of opportunities for pupils to develop entrepreneurial skills. The new Business GCSE, which was first taught from 2017, is intended to enable students to develop as commercially minded and enterprising individuals. In 2014, for the first time, financial literacy was made statutory within the national curriculum as it is now taught as part of the citizenship curriculum for 11 to 16 year olds. Schools are free to cover enterprise and entrepreneurship teaching within their personal, social, health and economic education.
Personal characteristics like resilience, problem-solving and good character are crucial for setting up a business. Good schools will offer a wide range of opportunities for their pupils to develop these characteristics through activities such as debating, sport and volunteering, or through programmes such as the National Citizen Service or the Cadets.
Published in December 2017, the Government’s careers strategy aims to give young people from all backgrounds the opportunity to learn from employers about work and the skills that are valued in the workplace. The strategy introduces a new expectation that every school should offer every young person at least seven encounters with employers, including those who are self-employed, during their education as part of a high-quality careers programme.
The Careers & Enterprise Company’s network of Enterprise Advisers will support the delivery of this ambition. Enterprise Advisers are senior business volunteers who help schools and colleges to work with local businesses. At the end of June 2019, over 2,200 schools and colleges had been matched with an Enterprise Adviser. The Department will give all schools and colleges access to an Enterprise Adviser by the end of 2020.
Asked by: Jonathan Lord (Conservative - Woking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department plans to review the funding of sixth form colleges.
Answered by Michelle Donelan - Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
My right hon. Friend, The Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced on 31 August 2019 that the government will invest an extra £400 million in 16-19 education in 2020-21. This represents an increase of 7% in overall 16 to 19 funding. This is the biggest injection of new money in a single year since 2010, with funding increasing faster for 16-19 than in 5-16 schooling. As part of this, the base rate of funding for all types of providers, including sixth form colleges, will be increased by 4.7% in academic year 2020-21, from £4,000 to £4,188.
As in 2019-20, the Department will meet the full cost of additional pensions’ payments for further education in 2020-21 and this is additional funding on top of the £400 million announcement.
Funding for 2021-22 onwards will be considered in the full Spending Review next year.
Asked by: Jonathan Lord (Conservative - Woking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of trends in the level of demand for local authority-provided children’s services.
Answered by Michelle Donelan - Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
The department publishes a range of statistics on trends in the level of demand for children’s services. This data is available to all local authorities to help benchmark their services and can be found in the Local Authority Interactive Tool, available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/local-authority-interactive-tool-lait.
In relation to children’s social care, the department worked with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, HM Treasury and the sector to understand the level of funding needed for local authorities to meet demand and deliver statutory services in preparation for the 2019 Spending Round. My right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has now announced that local government is getting an additional £1 billion grant for social care for adults and children in 2020-21. This is in addition to the continuation of existing social care grants. Work to further our understanding of demand will continue as part of preparation for the next Spending Review.
Asked by: Jonathan Lord (Conservative - Woking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans his Department has to ensure an adequate number of places at secondary schools in Surrey.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Local authorities are under a statutory duty to ensure that there is a school place available for every child. The Department provides basic need funding for every place that is needed, based on local authorities’ own data on pupil forecasts. Surrey has been allocated £287.4 million to provide new school places from 2011-21. This funding is not ringfenced, allowing local authorities greater flexibility to make decisions that are best for their local area.
There is currently one mainstream secondary free school, one specialist maths free school, and two special free schools with secondary provision in the pre-opening phase in Surrey. The Department is currently working with proposer groups to establish these new schools as soon as possible.
The current Spending Review settlement covers capital budgets until 2021. Capital funding for education beyond the current period will be agreed as part of the next Spending Review, where the Department will have the opportunity to discuss capital funding for education in the round and to consider how we can best support the sector.
Asked by: Jonathan Lord (Conservative - Woking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of provision of teaching of financial literacy in secondary schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Since 2014 financial education has been statutory within the secondary national curriculum as part of citizenship and mathematics. Financial education ensures that pupils are taught the functions and uses of money, the importance of personal budgeting, money management and managing financial risk.
The Ofsted inspection framework sets out how inspections take a view on the quality of the broad and balanced education that a school provides. This includes how schools provide pupils with the knowledge and skills needed to take advantage of opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life, which can include financial education, as well as how curriculum subjects such as citizenship contribute to pupils’ personal development.
There are a number of organisations that support financial education for young people. Young Money recently launched a free financial education textbook for secondary schools, to support high quality teaching of the subject. The Department is currently working with the Money and Pension Service and HM Treasury to consider how we can further support the teaching of financial education in schools.
Asked by: Jonathan Lord (Conservative - Woking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the availability of primary school places in (a) Woking constituency and (b) Surrey.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Local authorities are under a statutory duty to ensure that there is a school place available for every child. The Department provides basic need funding for every place that is needed, based on local authorities’ data on pupil forecasts. Surrey has been allocated £287.4 million to provide new school places from 2011-21.
The Department collects pupil forecasts, existing school capacities, and plans to deliver additional school places from each local authority via the annual school capacity survey. Information from local authorities, together with information on centrally funded projects to add places, such as new free schools, is used to produce estimates of the future need for school places.
The Department only collects data at local authority and planning area level, and so does not hold data at constituency level. The latest available modelled estimates for Surrey show that there will be a net surplus of 4,633 primary places in the current academic year. This is forecast to increase to a net surplus of 5,963 primary places by 2022-23. The latest published data also shows that 14,658 new primary places have been created in Surrey between 2010 and 2018.
Asked by: Jonathan Lord (Conservative - Woking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of trends in the level of grade inflation in (a) GCSEs and (b) A Levels since 2010.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The maintenance of standards for GCSEs and A levels is a matter for Ofqual, the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation. I have asked its Chief Regulator, Sally Collier, to write to my hon. Friend, and a copy of her reply will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.