Asked by: Josh Newbury (Labour - Cannock Chase)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that there is adequate capacity in pupil referral units in (a) Cannock Chase constituency and (b) Staffordshire.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Local authorities are responsible for providing enough school places for their area. The department provides capital funding through the basic need grant to secure mainstream school places and through the high needs provision capital allocations to invest in places for children and young people with special education needs and disabilities or who require alternative provision (AP). In Cannock Chase constituency there are four special schools, one pupil referral unit (PRU), one Progress Centre and one independent AP provider.
Ensuring schools and other education settings have the resources and buildings they need is a key part of this government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and give every child the best start in life. Responsibility for keeping education buildings safe and well-maintained lies with settings and their responsible bodies, such as local authorities and academy trusts. The department supports them by providing capital funding, delivering major rebuilding programmes and offering guidance and support.
The department has allocated £1.8 billion in condition funding for the 2024/25 financial year to improve the condition of schools, including PRUs. As part of the 2025/26 financial year budget, we are increasing capital funding to improve the condition of the estate to £2.1 billion, which is £300 million more than this year. The department expects to publish allocations in the spring, including for individual local authorities and other responsible bodies. Capital funding beyond 2025/26 will be set out following the spending review.
Asked by: Josh Newbury (Labour - Cannock Chase)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that pupil referral unit premises are fit for purpose.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Local authorities are responsible for providing enough school places for their area. The department provides capital funding through the basic need grant to secure mainstream school places and through the high needs provision capital allocations to invest in places for children and young people with special education needs and disabilities or who require alternative provision (AP). In Cannock Chase constituency there are four special schools, one pupil referral unit (PRU), one Progress Centre and one independent AP provider.
Ensuring schools and other education settings have the resources and buildings they need is a key part of this government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and give every child the best start in life. Responsibility for keeping education buildings safe and well-maintained lies with settings and their responsible bodies, such as local authorities and academy trusts. The department supports them by providing capital funding, delivering major rebuilding programmes and offering guidance and support.
The department has allocated £1.8 billion in condition funding for the 2024/25 financial year to improve the condition of schools, including PRUs. As part of the 2025/26 financial year budget, we are increasing capital funding to improve the condition of the estate to £2.1 billion, which is £300 million more than this year. The department expects to publish allocations in the spring, including for individual local authorities and other responsible bodies. Capital funding beyond 2025/26 will be set out following the spending review.
Asked by: Josh Newbury (Labour - Cannock Chase)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of variations in per pupil funding for places in pupil referral units on pupils' educational outcomes.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
Most funding for pupil referral units, and other alternative provision (AP), comes from local authorities’ high needs budgets, Following the Autumn Budget 2024, the department is providing an increase of £1 billion for high needs budgets in England in the 2025/26 financial year, bringing total high needs funding for children and young people with complex special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and AP to £11.9 billion. Of that total, Staffordshire County Council is being allocated over £143 million through the high needs funding block of the dedicated schools grant (DSG), an increase of £10.4 million on this year’s DSG high needs block, calculated using the high needs national funding formula (NFF). This NFF allocation is an 8.7% increase per head of their 2 to 18-year-old population, on their equivalent 2024/25 NFF allocation.
Top-up funding is agreed locally, between the local authority and alternative providers themselves. The top-up funding should reflect the costs of additional support to meet the individual pupil or student’s needs. Top-up funding also reflects costs that relate to the facilities required to support a pupil or student’s education and training needs and can take into account expected place occupancy levels and other factors, which means they can vary from one local authority to another.
Asked by: Josh Newbury (Labour - Cannock Chase)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support her Department provides to care leaver university students outside of term time.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government is committed to providing support for care leavers to ensure they have the practical and emotional support they need as they move towards independence.
Local authorities must provide assistance to care leavers near to the place they are receiving education, including outside their home authority. This assistance may take the form of either providing the young person with suitable accommodation, or by paying them enough to secure suitable accommodation themselves.
Care leavers must have pathway plans setting out what support they can expect from their local authority, including accommodation during term time, short vacations and summer vacation. If care leavers are unable to return to their former placements, they must be provided with alternative suitable accommodation. The requirement to assist with vacation accommodation lasts for as long as the young person continues on the course which has been agreed as part of their pathway plan.
Care leavers who enter higher education (HE) are entitled to a statutory bursary of £2,000 from their local authority and many universities offer additional support within their access and participation regimes. This may include additional financial support, pastoral support and 365 days per year housing whilst they are at university.
In addition, the Children's Commissioner for England has recently published a handbook for professionals working in HE on supporting care experienced students. The recommendations in the handbook come directly from care experienced young people and it includes practical proposals to improve their experience of HE.
Asked by: Josh Newbury (Labour - Cannock Chase)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to increase the provision of level (a) five and (b) six qualifications in areas that do not have a university.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department continues to support access to higher level qualifications to break down barriers to opportunity and support economic growth.
The department continues to support learners who wish to progress from Level 3 to a higher level, whether that is to study at university, a higher level or degree apprenticeship, or a Level 4 or 5 classroom-based qualification, including Higher Technical Qualifications (HTQs), which have been approved as providing the skills that employers need.
The introduction of HTQs at Level 5 is aimed at providing high quality, employer-led qualifications that meet the needs of local economies and improves the accessibility and flexibility of higher education. These qualifications are designed to be delivered by further education colleges and other providers and are flexible, offering full-time, part-time and online learning options. This allows breadth of access, meaning that individuals who do not live near a university may be able to access higher technical education through a college.
The department also continues to support the delivery of higher and degree apprenticeships, which allow individuals to earn while they learn and gain qualifications up to Level 6. This approach helps to ensure that training is closely aligned with industry needs.
Additionally, institutions like the Open University offer Validation Programmes enabling institutions without their own degree-awarding powers to offer validated higher education programmes. Such initiatives can help to ensure that high quality degrees are accessible to learners in areas that do not have a university.
The department is also setting up Skills England, a new body, to bring together central and local government, businesses, training providers and unions to meet the skills needs of the next decade across all regions, providing strategic oversight of the post-16 skills system aligned to the government’s Industrial Strategy.
The government will bring forward a comprehensive strategy for post-16 education to break down barriers to opportunity, support the development of a skilled workforce, and drive economic growth through our Industrial Strategy.
Asked by: Josh Newbury (Labour - Cannock Chase)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policies of trends in the number of requests to schools to remove LGBT+ literature from school libraries.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The current national curriculum requires teachers to encourage pupils to develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information. It also emphasises the importance of children listening to, discussing and reading for themselves a wide range of stories, poems, plays and non-fiction books. Within the framework of the national curriculum, schools make their own choices about which specific books or other resources they use. No authors, books or genres have been banned. Teachers have flexibility in their choice of books to teach within the context of the curriculum. Any sensitive issues should be covered by the school’s own policy and in consultation with parents.
Asked by: Josh Newbury (Labour - Cannock Chase)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of the central costs of academy trusts on the budgets of academy schools.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The primary responsibility for the financial oversight of academy trusts rests with the trustees themselves, who are supported by the financial management and governance requirements set by the department in academy trusts’ funding agreements, the academy trust handbook and academies accounts direction. The department expects academy trustees to deliver strong governance and monitor the financial health of their trust or school. It is with strong financial management and governance that schools are able to operate most effectively and deliver high quality teaching and learning that prepares our children for the future.
Academy trusts can take a cut from their funding to pay for central services for their schools. This can be more efficient and cheaper than individual schools running or procuring the functions themselves.
Where academy trusts take a cut to pay for central services, they must be transparent by disclosing the basis and value in their published, audited, annual accounts. They must also include additional disclosures in their accounts about the services they deliver centrally and the charging policy they apply. They must also identify the share against each academy.
The government is clear that strong accountability is non-negotiable. That is why the government has committed to bring multi-academy trusts into the inspection system, to make the system fairer and more transparent, and to enable intervention when schools and trusts are not performing to the required standards.
Asked by: Josh Newbury (Labour - Cannock Chase)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the value for money of the central costs of operating academy trusts.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The primary responsibility for the financial oversight of academy trusts rests with the trustees themselves, who are supported by the financial management and governance requirements set by the department in academy trusts’ funding agreements, the academy trust handbook and academies accounts direction. The department expects academy trustees to deliver strong governance and monitor the financial health of their trust or school. It is with strong financial management and governance that schools are able to operate most effectively and deliver high quality teaching and learning that prepares our children for the future.
Academy trusts can take a cut from their funding to pay for central services for their schools. This can be more efficient and cheaper than individual schools running or procuring the functions themselves.
Where academy trusts take a cut to pay for central services, they must be transparent by disclosing the basis and value in their published, audited, annual accounts. They must also include additional disclosures in their accounts about the services they deliver centrally and the charging policy they apply. They must also identify the share against each academy.
The government is clear that strong accountability is non-negotiable. That is why the government has committed to bring multi-academy trusts into the inspection system, to make the system fairer and more transparent, and to enable intervention when schools and trusts are not performing to the required standards.
Asked by: Josh Newbury (Labour - Cannock Chase)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 13 September 2024 to Question 4283 on Schools: Admissions, what steps her Department is taking to issue guidance to Local Planning Authorities on appropriate levels of section 106 contributions from developers to meet future demand for school places.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
In August 2023, the department published two non-statutory guidance documents for local authorities planning for education, local planning authorities (LPAs) and other stakeholders involved in the delivery of schools.
The guidance on 'Estimating pupil yield from housing development’ sets out the department’s recommended approach to calculating pupil yield from housing development to inform local plans and planning decisions and to help local authorities and LPAs justify developer contributions towards education. This guidance can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/64d0f71be5491a00134b5940/Estimating_Pupil_Yield_from_Housing_Development.pdf.
The guidance on ‘Securing developer contributions for education’ promotes good practice on evidencing the impacts of development, engaging with LPAs and delivering expanded or new facilities with funding from housing development. This document can be accessed here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/64d0f70d7a5708001314485f/Securing_Developer_Contributions_for_Education.pdf.
Asked by: Josh Newbury (Labour - Cannock Chase)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure the adequacy of school place provision in areas with high levels of housebuilding.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
Local authorities are responsible for providing enough school places for children in their area. The department provides capital funding through the Basic Need grant to support local authorities to provide school places, based on their own pupil forecasts and school capacity data. Nearly £1.5 billion of allocations have been confirmed to support local authorities to create school places needed over the current and next two academic years, up to and including the academic year starting in September 2026. Local authorities’ allocations are published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/basic-need-allocations.
Contributions from housing developers are also an important way of helping to meet demand for new school places when housing developments are driving pupil numbers. It is for the Local Planning Authority (LPA) to secure developer contributions through section 106 agreements or the Community Infrastructure Levy, and to decide on the local infrastructure needs that this contribution should support. The department would encourage LPAs to secure significant contributions for new school places and work closely with colleagues planning school places in their area, including county councils when the local authority responsible for education is not the LPA.