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 finding by the National Day Nurseries Association that £55 million of early years funding was unspent or allocated to other budgets in 2020-2021, what assessment his Department has made of the implications of that finding for his spending on early years education; and if he will commit to (a) reviewing the funding of early education and childcare and (b) ensuring that funding follows the child it was intended to support.
Answered by Will Quince
The department has spent over £3.5 billion in each of the past three years on our early education entitlements and the government will continue to support families with their childcare costs.
The Early Years National Funding Formula (EYNFF) has been designed to allocate our record investment in early years (EY) entitlement funding fairly and transparently across the country. The department will continue to review the data underpinning the formula.
Local authorities can set aside contingency funding as part of their local budgetary process to help manage fluctuations in take-up. The amount of contingency funding set aside within local EY budgets has reduced year on year since the introduction of the EYNFF in 2017. Nationally, this accounted for less than 1% of the budget for the EY entitlements in the 2021/22 financial year.
Any underspend from a local authority’s EY budget is carried forward to the next financial year and must remain within the education budget. Funding allocations for local authorities for the EY entitlements in financial year 2020-21 (the same period as covered in the National Day Nurseries Association report) can be found here: https://skillsfunding.service.gov.uk/view-latest-funding/national-funding-allocations/DSG/2020-to-2021.
The downward adjustment between the March 2021 and November 2021 updates reflects a demographic dip in the number of children eligible for the entitlements based on January 2021 census data.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he has made an assessment of the adequacy of the availability of wraparound services for special educational needs children in educational settings.
Answered by Will Quince
Ensuring that all children and young people, without exception, have access to the right educational support, so that they can fulfil their potential and lead happy, healthy and productive adult lives is a priority for the government, and the department recognises the important role that wraparound childcare can play in providing this support.
For this reason, we have outlined measures in the SEND Review: Right support, Right place that will help to create a more inclusive education system to ensure that children and young people with SEND thrive, details of which are available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/send-and-ap-green-paper-responding-to-the-consultation.
The department does not hold a central register of wraparound providers from which an accurate assessment of wraparound services for children with SEND in educational settings can be made. However, all local authorities have a legal duty to ensure that there are sufficient childcare places, so far as is reasonably practicable, for working parents in their area for children aged 0-14, or up to 18 for disabled children.
Local authorities must also publish and maintain a clear, accessible local offer of services to support children and young people with SEND and their families and keep education and care provision under review and consider if it is sufficient to meet the needs of children and young people with SEND in their area. Parents also have the right to request that the school their child attends considers establishing wraparound and/or holiday childcare if this is not already the case. More information about how to request wraparound childcare can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/778997/Rights_to_request_guidance-2019.pdf.
Other services may also be of help to parents of children with SEND concerned about access to childcare. Local Family Information Service can give advice on childcare providers in their area that may be able to accommodate specific childcare requirements. Relevant contact details can be found by using the childcare finder available here: http://finder.familyandchildcaretrust.org/kb5/fct/childcarefinder/home.page.
Advice on services for disabled children can also be obtained from local information, advice and support services, the contact details for which can be obtained through the Information, Advice and Support Services Network available here: https://councilfordisabledchildren.org.uk/about-us-0/networks/information-advice-and-support-services-network.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department has undertaken an assessment of the impact of teacher absences due to covid-19 on pupil behaviour.
Answered by Robin Walker
The government acknowledges that COVID-19 and its consequences, such as teacher absences, have had a significant impact on children and young people’s behaviour.
School leaders and staff have worked incredibly hard to make sure pupils have been able to remain in school, while dealing with higher levels of staff absence than normal. It is the department’s priority to support schools to deliver face to face, high quality education. We reintroduced the COVID-19 workforce fund to support schools and colleges facing the greatest staffing and funding pressures to continue to deliver face-to-face, high-quality education to all pupils. In deploying staff, headteachers should be satisfied that the person has the appropriate skills, expertise and experience to carry out the work. This includes ensuring that safe ratios are met and specific training undertaken, for any interventions or care for pupils with complex needs where specific training or specific ratios are required.
In addition, the government is also pursuing an ambitious programme of work to improve behaviour in schools. Our £10 million behaviour hubs programme, launched in April 2021, is projected to support up to 700 schools over 3 years. It enables schools with exemplary positive behaviour cultures to work closely with schools that want and need to turn around their behaviour alongside a central offer of support and a taskforce of advisers.
In June 2021, the department launched a call for evidence on managing good behaviour and how schools’ behaviour policies have changed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This evidence continues to be assessed alongside a public consultation on the Behaviour in Schools guidance, which closed on 31 March 2022. The guidance will provide practical advice to schools about how to encourage good behaviour and respond effectively to incidents of poor behaviour in and out of the classroom, and support staff in tackling behavioural issues that have arisen from COVID-19.
In autumn 2021 we introduced a new and updated suite of fully funded National Professional Qualifications (NPQs) to offer the best possible support to teachers and leaders right across the profession, to help them become more effective teachers and leaders inside and outside the classroom. One of the new specialist NPQs is the NPQ for Leading Behaviour and Culture. Specialist and leadership NPQs provide training and support for teachers and school leaders at all levels, from those who want to develop expertise in high-quality teaching practice, such as behaviour management, to those leading multiple schools across trusts
We have also made improvements to teacher training as part of the Early Career Framework. The Early Career Framework will directly support those at the start of their teaching careers by ensuring new teachers are entitled to a structured two-year package of funded high quality professional development based on the best available evidence.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department has made a quantitative assessment of trends in the level of closure of (a) nurseries and (b) early year settings in (i) 2020 and (ii) 2021.
Answered by Will Quince
The department continues to monitor the sufficiency of childcare places in England through regular surveys and engagement with early years providers and local authorities. Local authorities are not currently reporting any imminent sufficiency issues and we have not seen a substantial number of parents unable to secure a childcare place, either this term or since early years settings reopened fully on 1 June 2020.
According to findings from the 2021 childcare and early years providers survey, 7 in 10 group-based providers reported having spare places in their full-day provision and almost half of childminders (49%) reported having spare capacity on average across the week.
There were an estimated 62,000 providers with at least one child aged 0 to 4 years old registered in England in spring 2021, including 21,300 group-based providers, 9,500 school-based providers and 31,200 registered childminders. These providers were offering over 1.5 million Ofsted-registered childcare places. Comparable estimates from 2019 show there were 66,000 providers made up of 21,900 group-based providers, 8,900 school-based providers and 35,100 childminders. The drop in the number of providers between 2019 and 2021 is largely driven by a reduction in the estimated number of childminders. The number of group-based and school-based providers was more stable between these two years. There is no comparable data for 2020 because the 2020 childcare and early years providers survey was postponed due to COVID-19.
Ofsted data on movement in the childcare sector shows that there was minimal change in the number of childminders and childcare providers on non-domestic premises (group-based providers) between 31 March 2020 and 31 August 2020. Data from the same period in 2021 shows there was a reduction in the number of childminders from 33,004 on 31 March to 31,957 on 31 August. The reduction in the number of childminders continues a downward trend, with 14,100 (31%) fewer providers than on 31 August 2015. The number of group-based providers remained broadly stable across the two years.
In addition to our regular statistical collections, during 2020, the department also carried out three waves of the survey of childcare and early years providers and COVID-19. In all three waves, the majority of providers reported being open at the time of the survey with a small minority being temporarily or permanently closed.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many exclusions from school (a) in total and (b) of pupils with special educational needs occurred in Cheshire West and Chester in each of the last five years.
Answered by Will Quince
The number of permanent exclusions from schools in total, and for pupils with special educational needs, in the local authority of Cheshire West and Chester for the last five academic years can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/9721ff96-a9db-4f8b-9828-93083b7bd1bb.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many family hubs will be established in England; and what proportion of those hubs will be situated in the North West.
Answered by Will Quince
The government is committed to championing the Family Hub model. Between 2019 and 2021 we announced £39.5 million in support of this commitment, including:
At the Budget on 21 November 2021, the government announced a further £82 million to create a network of family hubs. This is part of a wider £300 million package to transform services for parents, carers, babies, and children in half of council areas across England.
The Department for Education and Department for Health and Social Care are working to determine the best approach for selecting local authorities and distributing the funding. We will set out more detail on this programme in due course.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many requests for education, health and care plans were (a) requested by parents and (b) approved by Cheshire West and Chester local authority in each of the last five years.
Answered by Will Quince
The number of requests for education, health and care (EHC) plans in Cheshire West and Chester can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/e1bc78f6-f918-41e9-865b-f81c971a05d0. The department does not hold data on who made the request, and thus the request numbers provided covers all requests made.
The number of new EHC plans approved in Cheshire West and Chester can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/a8b95a6d-2567-4d69-9df3-74a38beec32f.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what his timetable is for the publication of the SEND Review; and what plans he has for a review of the Education and Health Care Plan process.
Answered by Will Quince
The department will publish the special educational needs and disability (SEND) review Green Paper in the first quarter of this year for full public consultation. The review aims to ensure that children and young people with SEND receive the support they need and have a positive experience within a financially sustainable system. We want to clarify accountabilities at every level of the system and realise the benefits of aligned education, health, and care provision.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 9 December 2021 to Question 87719, on Primary Education: Sports, if he will outline his timetable for updating the School Sport and Activity Action Plan.
Answered by Will Quince
The government remains committed to the ambitions set out in the School Sport and Activity Action Plan and the department will publish an update to the plan later this year to align with publication of the government’s new sport strategy. This update will not only recover ground lost during COVID-19 restrictions but will boost momentum to deliver an action plan for all pupils regardless of background. The update will be backed by nearly £30 million a year to improve the teaching of physical education at primary school and open school sport facilities outside of the school day.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of the shortage of public service vehicle drivers on the ability of schools to arrange educational trips.
Answered by Robin Walker
The department has not undertaken any assessment of the potential effect of the shortage of public service vehicle drivers on the ability of schools to arrange educational visits.
The department is aware of the pressure placed on the school travel sector and the wider travel industry as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak and has worked directly, and on behalf of the school travel sector, to raise these issues with other government departments, including the Department for Transport.