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Written Question
Childcare: Special Educational Needs
Friday 22nd March 2024

Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the adequacy of the availability of childcare for children with special educational needs in each constituency.

Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

The department recognises the importance of ensuring that local authorities provide sufficient childcare services for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). The department continues to work closely with local authorities to monitor sufficiency of places for children in early years, including for those children with SEND.

The local authority statutory guidance on early education and childcare sets out a clear requirement that local authorities must report annually to elected council members on how they are meeting their duty to secure sufficient childcare and make this report available and accessible to parents. The statutory guidance is clear that the report should include a specific reference to how they are ensuring sufficient childcare is available to children with SEND.

The department is introducing Local Area Inclusion Plans (LAIPs) which are 3 year plans that explain how the needs of children and young people with SEND aged 0 to 25 in an area will be met. LAIPs will be monitored and reviewed by the department and be underpinned by strengthened accountabilities and improved use of data for all those responsible for local delivery of places.


Written Question
Pre-school Education: Fees and Charges
Monday 11th March 2024

Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent discussions her Department has had with early years providers on (a) additional charges for (i) meals and (ii) other consumables and (b) taking steps to assess the impact of those charges on parents.

Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

The department’s statutory guidance is clear that all eligible parents should have access to a free of charge place at an early years provider. The full guidance is available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/658309fd23b70a000d234d34/Early_education_and_childcare_statutory_guidance_-_April_2023.pdf. This means that a provider cannot charge parents “top-up” fees, which includes any fees covering the difference between a provider’s normal charge to parents and the funding they receive from the local authority to deliver free places. Providers must not require parents to pay a registration fee as a condition of taking up their child’s free place.

Regarding charges for consumables, government funding is intended to deliver 15 or 30 hours a week of free, high-quality, flexible childcare for eligible 2 to 4 year olds. It is not intended to cover the costs of meals, other consumables, additional hours or additional services, and providers are able to charge parents for these. However, such charges should not be made a condition of accessing a free place.

Providers should also ensure that they have a policy in place to consider the impact of charges on disadvantaged parents and those who are unable to pay additional charges.

As set out in the department’s guidance, to ensure that parents can make informed decisions on their choice of childcare, providers should publish a statement of how they deliver the free entitlements and any additional charges for optional activities outside of the entitlements. This should set out clearly the charges for meals, optional activities or additional hours.

There have been no recent discussions regarding this subject between the department and early years providers, beyond the reiteration of the guidance to local authorities who manage local relationships with providers.


Written Question
Schools: Concrete
Tuesday 20th February 2024

Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what her planned timetable is for the completion of the long-term removal of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete in school buildings in cases where a (a) capital grant is provided and (b) rebuilding project is agreed.

Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)

The government is funding the removal of RAAC present in school and colleges either through grants, or through the School Rebuilding Programme. A list of education settings with confirmed RAAC and the funding route to remove RAAC was published on 8 February 2024, available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reinforced-autoclaved-aerated-concrete-raac-management-information.

The longer-term requirements of each school or college will vary depending on the extent of the issue and nature and design of the buildings. Permanently removing RAAC may involve refurbishment of existing buildings such as replacing the roof or rebuilding affected buildings. For schools joining the School Rebuilding Programme, schools are prioritised for delivery according to the condition need of their buildings, readiness to proceed, and efficiency of delivery. For schools and colleges receiving grants, the department will work with the responsible bodies to support them through the grants process as they undertake the buildings works to remove RAAC permanently. The department is working with responsible bodies to take forward this work as quickly as possible.


Written Question
Further Education: Pay
Monday 8th January 2024

Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing a funding mechanism for pay in further education that is separate to per-pupil funding.

Answered by Robert Halfon

Colleges and other Further Education (FE) providers are responsible for setting the pay of their teaching and support staff. The government plays no role in this process. Colleges and other providers can make their own decisions about teacher pay in light of their own recruitment and retention needs and local skills priorities.

The department is investing an additional £185 million in the 2023/24 financial year and £285 million in the 2024/25 financial year to drive forward skills delivery within the sector. This funding is to help colleges and other providers to address their key priorities, including tackling recruitment and retention issues in high-value subject areas critical to our economy.

For academic year 2023/24 there is an 8.3% increase in the average 16-19 programme funding per student compared to academic year 2022/23. This funding supports colleges and other providers with staffing and other delivery costs.

The 2021 Spending Review set out an investment of £3.8 billion in skills across this Parliament to enable learners to access the skills and training they need to transform their lives.

The department is also delivering a programme to directly support the sector to recruit excellent staff, which includes a national recruitment campaign; strengthening and incentivising the uptake of initial teacher education, including through teacher training bursaries in priority subjects worth up to £29,000 each (tax free for 2023/24); and Taking Teaching Further, a programme that supports FE providers to recruit and provide early career support to those with relevant knowledge and industry experience to retrain as FE teachers.

To boost the recruitment and retention of teachers, we will also give eligible early career teachers in key science, technology, english and mathematics and technical shortage subjects, working in disadvantaged schools and colleges, up to £6,000 after tax annually on top of their pay. This will double the existing Levelling Up Premium paid to school teachers and extend it to all FE colleges for the first time.


Written Question
Further Education: Finance
Friday 22nd December 2023

Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department is taking steps to help ensure that increases in Further Education funding are used to (a) address recruitment and retention and (b) support colleges’ abilities to deliver on skills policy.

Answered by Robert Halfon

Colleges and other further education (FE) providers are responsible for setting the pay of their teaching and support staff. The government plays no role in this process.

The department is investing an additional £185 million in the 2023/2024 financial year and £285 million in the 2024/25 financial year to drive forward skills delivery in the further education sector.

This funding is to help colleges and other providers to address their key priorities, particularly tackling recruitment and retention issues in high-value subject areas critical to the economy.

This investment is being delivered via core 16 to 19 funding, including through boosting programme cost weightings for higher-cost subject areas, as well as increasing the per-student funding rate.

This investment is additional to the £125 million of funding the department has made available in the 2023/24 financial year to boost the national 16 to 19 funding rate and subject-specific funding. This means 16 to 19 providers are seeing a larger than expected increase to funding rates.

For the 2023/24 academic year, there is a 8.3% increase in the average 16 to 19 programme funding per student funding compared to the 2022/23 academic year.

The department is also delivering a programme to directly support the sector to recruit excellent staff, which includes a national recruitment campaign. The department is also strengthening and incentivising the uptake of initial teacher education, for example through teacher training bursaries in priority subjects worth up to £29,000 each, tax free for 2023/24.

To boost recruitment and retention of teachers, the department will give early career teachers in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and technical shortage subjects, working in disadvantaged schools and colleges, up to £6,000 after tax annually on top of their pay. This will double the existing Levelling Up Premium paid to school teachers, and extend it to all FE colleges for the first time.

The Spending Review 2021 set out an investment of £3.8 billion in skills across this Parliament to enable learners to access the skills and training they need to transform their lives.

Each year, the department holds annual strategic conversations (ASCs) with each college in England where we meet the colleges senior leadership team. ASCs build upon the government’s response to the recommendations made in Dame Mary Ney’s Review of Financial Oversight of FE Colleges and the FE White Paper. Through the regular dialogue of ASCs and termly delivery conversations (TDCs), the department has established effective relationships with each of its statutory FE providers. This has enabled the department to develop a holistic view of each institution. With a clear focus on the priorities for development of skills provision, the ASCs and TDCs are informing both the department’s deployment of advice and practical support to colleges, and its wider policy and decision making.

Investment is also continuing in leadership and management development, which supports retention of staff. The Further Education Commissioner and her team are supporting the sharing of effective practice to enable delivery to be as efficient as possible whilst remaining high quality.


Written Question
Further Education: Finance
Friday 22nd December 2023

Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to ensure that additional funding for pay rises for support staff in further education colleges will be used for that purpose.

Answered by Robert Halfon

Colleges and other further education (FE) providers are responsible for setting the pay of their teaching and support staff. The government plays no role in this process.

The department is investing an additional £185 million in the 2023/2024 financial year and £285 million in the 2024/25 financial year to drive forward skills delivery in the further education sector.

This funding is to help colleges and other providers to address their key priorities, particularly tackling recruitment and retention issues in high-value subject areas critical to the economy.

This investment is being delivered via core 16 to 19 funding, including through boosting programme cost weightings for higher-cost subject areas, as well as increasing the per-student funding rate.

This investment is additional to the £125 million of funding the department has made available in the 2023/24 financial year to boost the national 16 to 19 funding rate and subject-specific funding. This means 16 to 19 providers are seeing a larger than expected increase to funding rates.

For the 2023/24 academic year, there is a 8.3% increase in the average 16 to 19 programme funding per student funding compared to the 2022/23 academic year.

The department is also delivering a programme to directly support the sector to recruit excellent staff, which includes a national recruitment campaign. The department is also strengthening and incentivising the uptake of initial teacher education, for example through teacher training bursaries in priority subjects worth up to £29,000 each, tax free for 2023/24.

To boost recruitment and retention of teachers, the department will give early career teachers in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and technical shortage subjects, working in disadvantaged schools and colleges, up to £6,000 after tax annually on top of their pay. This will double the existing Levelling Up Premium paid to school teachers, and extend it to all FE colleges for the first time.

The Spending Review 2021 set out an investment of £3.8 billion in skills across this Parliament to enable learners to access the skills and training they need to transform their lives.

Each year, the department holds annual strategic conversations (ASCs) with each college in England where we meet the colleges senior leadership team. ASCs build upon the government’s response to the recommendations made in Dame Mary Ney’s Review of Financial Oversight of FE Colleges and the FE White Paper. Through the regular dialogue of ASCs and termly delivery conversations (TDCs), the department has established effective relationships with each of its statutory FE providers. This has enabled the department to develop a holistic view of each institution. With a clear focus on the priorities for development of skills provision, the ASCs and TDCs are informing both the department’s deployment of advice and practical support to colleges, and its wider policy and decision making.

Investment is also continuing in leadership and management development, which supports retention of staff. The Further Education Commissioner and her team are supporting the sharing of effective practice to enable delivery to be as efficient as possible whilst remaining high quality.


Written Question
Free School Meals
Wednesday 20th December 2023

Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Answer of 19 September 2023 to Question198717 on Free School Meals, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that schools continue to be able to provide healthy meals; and what discussions his Department has had with schools on whether they can provide these meals within the agreed budgets.

Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)

The department spends over £1 billion on the provision of free meals. Schools currently attract £480 annually through the free school meals (FSM) factor of the national funding formula, in respect of FSM-eligible pupils. This is increasing to £490 in 2024/25.

In addition to this, schools are currently plaid a meal rate of £2.53 to support the provision of Universal infant FSM.

The department continues to keep funding under review and regularly meet with stakeholders to monitor issues in this sector, including food industry representatives, school leaders and pupils.

Further to this, the department supports the provision of nutritious food in schools through ‘The Requirements for School Food Regulations’ (2014), which require schools to provide children with healthy food and drink options, and to make sure that children get the energy and nutrition they need across the school day. These regulations are available at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/1603/contents/made.

The school food standards restrict foods high in fat, salt and sugar, as well as low quality reformed or reconstituted foods. Compliance with the school food standards is mandatory for all maintained schools, academies and free schools.


Written Question
Schools: Concrete
Tuesday 19th December 2023

Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to instruct Ofqual to give special consideration for students whose schools have been affected by RAAC.

Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)

Our focus is on supporting schools and colleges to put in place suitable mitigations to minimise disruption to learning.

Special consideration is given to a candidate who has temporarily experienced illness, injury or some other event outside of their control at the time of the exam or assessment. Decisions on special consideration are made by individual exam boards, following guidance published by the Joint Council for Qualifications.

Officials in the department have been working hard to ensure that any school or college that is struggling to deliver particular assessments due to RAAC receives the support they need for their specific circumstances. Officials have asked awarding organisations to agree extensions to coursework and non-examined assessment deadlines with affected schools and colleges wherever possible, whilst providing as much flexibility as they can within the confines of their processes and regulations.


Written Question
Schools: Concrete
Tuesday 19th December 2023

Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what her Department's timescale is for replacing (a) school buildings and (b) sports facilities affected by RAAC; and what criteria her Department plans to use when judging the suitability of replacement buildings.

Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)

An updated list of schools and colleges with confirmed cases of RAAC was published on 6 December, which is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reinforced-autoclaved-aerated-concrete-raac-management-information.

The department has committed to remove RAAC from the school estate. This will be delivered through capital grants or the School Rebuilding Programme. The department will set out further details in due course.

The Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) is providing support to Responsible Bodies with revenue funding to cover a range of RAAC-related costs, including lost income due to cancelled lettings. Affected Responsible Bodies should contact their RAAC caseworker to discuss any revenue needs including lost income, so that support from the ESFA can be sought as soon as possible.

​​On grading, the department’s focus is on supporting schools and colleges to put in place suitable mitigations to minimise disruption to learning. Officials in the department have also been working hard to ensure that any school or college that is struggling to deliver particular assessments due to RAAC receives the support they need for their specific circumstances. Officials have asked awarding organisations to agree extensions to coursework and non-examined assessment deadlines with affected schools and colleges wherever possible within the confines of their processes and regulations.

Special consideration is only given to a candidate who has temporarily experienced illness, injury or some other event outside of their control at the time of the exam or assessment. Decisions on special consideration are made by exam boards on an individual basis. The Joint Council for Qualifications’ guidance is clear that students would not be eligible for special consideration on the grounds that teaching and learning has been disrupted by building work or a lack of facilities. This is important so that employers and/or further or higher education institutions can rely on the qualification outcomes as evidence of an individual’s abilities against the published content requirements.

The department has a robust offer of support for pupils including extra education support for those who need it. The department has made more than £1 billion available to support tutoring. Since the launch of the National Tutoring Programme in November 2020, nearly four million tutoring courses have been started.

The department is investing record amounts of pupil premium funding with £2.6 billion in 2022/23 and £2.9 billion this financial year. The department also offers wider support for pupils who are disadvantaged and may need more support, such as free school meals that support 1.9 million children and the holiday activities and food programme where the department investing over £200 million a year for the next 2 years and support for 2,500 breakfast clubs.

Ofsted is avoiding scheduling school inspections during this term for schools on the department’s published list of settings affected by RAAC. For schools impacted by RAAC, but not on the list, Ofsted will carefully consider any requests for a deferral of an inspection.


Written Question
Schools: Concrete
Tuesday 19th December 2023

Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent estimate her Department has made of the number of (a) school buildings and (b) sports facilities affected by RAAC; and whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of compensating schools for lost income due to their inability to rent out such buildings.

Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)

An updated list of schools and colleges with confirmed cases of RAAC was published on 6 December, which is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reinforced-autoclaved-aerated-concrete-raac-management-information.

The department has committed to remove RAAC from the school estate. This will be delivered through capital grants or the School Rebuilding Programme. The department will set out further details in due course.

The Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) is providing support to Responsible Bodies with revenue funding to cover a range of RAAC-related costs, including lost income due to cancelled lettings. Affected Responsible Bodies should contact their RAAC caseworker to discuss any revenue needs including lost income, so that support from the ESFA can be sought as soon as possible.

​​On grading, the department’s focus is on supporting schools and colleges to put in place suitable mitigations to minimise disruption to learning. Officials in the department have also been working hard to ensure that any school or college that is struggling to deliver particular assessments due to RAAC receives the support they need for their specific circumstances. Officials have asked awarding organisations to agree extensions to coursework and non-examined assessment deadlines with affected schools and colleges wherever possible within the confines of their processes and regulations.

Special consideration is only given to a candidate who has temporarily experienced illness, injury or some other event outside of their control at the time of the exam or assessment. Decisions on special consideration are made by exam boards on an individual basis. The Joint Council for Qualifications’ guidance is clear that students would not be eligible for special consideration on the grounds that teaching and learning has been disrupted by building work or a lack of facilities. This is important so that employers and/or further or higher education institutions can rely on the qualification outcomes as evidence of an individual’s abilities against the published content requirements.

The department has a robust offer of support for pupils including extra education support for those who need it. The department has made more than £1 billion available to support tutoring. Since the launch of the National Tutoring Programme in November 2020, nearly four million tutoring courses have been started.

The department is investing record amounts of pupil premium funding with £2.6 billion in 2022/23 and £2.9 billion this financial year. The department also offers wider support for pupils who are disadvantaged and may need more support, such as free school meals that support 1.9 million children and the holiday activities and food programme where the department investing over £200 million a year for the next 2 years and support for 2,500 breakfast clubs.

Ofsted is avoiding scheduling school inspections during this term for schools on the department’s published list of settings affected by RAAC. For schools impacted by RAAC, but not on the list, Ofsted will carefully consider any requests for a deferral of an inspection.