Asked by: Karen Lee (Labour - Lincoln)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether additional funding will be provided for supply teachers while permanent staff undertake the accelerated teaching programme.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Through the Teaching and Leadership Innovation Fund, the Department for Education is funding Accelerate – a professional development programme that will provide specialist support for early career teachers.
Accelerate, delivered by the Education Development Trust, is free to eligible teachers in their first five years of teaching. As a part of the programme, schools will be remunerated for teachers or leaders who are involved in aspects of delivery, for example, for coaching participants. No additional funding is provided to cover supply staff costs for staff undertaking the programme.
Asked by: Karen Lee (Labour - Lincoln)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of local authorities’ ability to (a) identify (i) current and (ii) future demand for children’s services and (b) supply the services demanded.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
As set out in the Children Act 1989, local authorities are responsible for delivering children’s social care services. Ofsted is responsible for the Inspection of Local Authority Children’s Services (ILACS) and these inspections provide a robust assessment of the quality and outcomes of local services. The department publishes a range of statistics on activity rates, timeliness and costs of children’s services and these data are available to all local authorities to help benchmark their services. The department has no current plans to develop a national outcomes framework for children’s services.
Asked by: Karen Lee (Labour - Lincoln)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of developing a national outcomes framework to benchmark all children’s services provision on (a) value, (b) quality, (c) cost and (c) outcomes.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
As set out in the Children Act 1989, local authorities are responsible for delivering children’s social care services. Ofsted is responsible for the Inspection of Local Authority Children’s Services (ILACS) and these inspections provide a robust assessment of the quality and outcomes of local services. The department publishes a range of statistics on activity rates, timeliness and costs of children’s services and these data are available to all local authorities to help benchmark their services. The department has no current plans to develop a national outcomes framework for children’s services.
Asked by: Karen Lee (Labour - Lincoln)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if his department will make an assessment of the potential merits of developing guidance on achieving permanence for (a) looked after children and young people and (b) people with special educational needs and disabilities; and whether such permanence is defined as a core purpose of children’s social care.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The government recognises the importance of securing permanence for looked after children and young people. Planning for permanence is central to children and families social work.
The Care Planning, Placement and Case Review Regulations 2010 and the supporting statutory guidance set out clear expectations on planning for permanence to ensure that children have a secure, stable and loving family to support them through childhood and beyond and to give them a sense of security, continuity, commitment, identity and belonging. This includes those children identified as having special educational needs.
Asked by: Karen Lee (Labour - Lincoln)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how his department defines good outcomes for (a) children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities and (b) looked after children and young people; and if he will develop guidance on those outcomes for local authorities and providers.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The government wants all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), and looked after children, to achieve well in early years, at school, in further and higher education and be prepared for adulthood.
We have put in place a number of programmes to support improved outcomes for children and young people with SEND, including, from September 2014, introducing the largest reforms to the SEND system in a generation.
We assess outcomes for children and young people with SEND through external measures. For example, GSCE exam results (including attainment 8 and Progress 8 measures), the early years foundation stage profile; phonics screening check, key stage 1, key stage 2, numbers of tribunal cases (including the number decided in the appellant’s favour), and destinations data (the numbers going into further and higher education, and employment), absence and exclusions data.
We have also started looking at longer-term outcomes for special educational needs (SEN) pupils. This has been possible through analysis of the longitudinal educational outcomes (LEO) dataset. This dataset, for the first time, brings together information about learners including: personal characteristics such as gender and ethnicity; education, including schools, colleges and higher education institution attended, courses taken and qualifications achieved; PAYE and self-assessed employment and income data from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs; and data on benefits claims from the Department of Work and Pensions.
Initial analysis relating to longer term employment and benefit outcomes of SEN pupils was published in July 2018. This analysis was based on those who completed key stage 4 in academic years 2002/03 and 2003/04. The data can be accessed via: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-and-labour-market-outcomes-by-pupil-characteristics.
The corporate parenting principles, which local authorities must have regard to, require them to secure the best possible outcomes for looked after children and young people. The principles include promoting high aspirations, their health, stability in their homes lives and preparing them for adulthood and independence. Statutory guidance on applying the corporate parenting principles is available via https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/applying-corporate-parenting-principles-to-looked-after-children-and-care-leavers. Data on the outcomes of looked after children and care leavers is available in the statistical first release on ‘Children looked after in England including adoption’ (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2016-to-2017) and on ‘Outcomes for children looked after by local authorities’ in England (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/outcomes-for-children-looked-after-by-las-31-march-2017).
Asked by: Karen Lee (Labour - Lincoln)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of (a) the effectiveness of the team around the child approach in children’s services provision and (b) whether that approach should be the default for children’s social care providers.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
We have not assessed the team around the child approach, however some models of help and protection have been evaluated by the Children’s Social Care Innovation Programme (CSCIP), which found that the use of multi-disciplinary skill sets in supporting children and families was a key feature of successful projects. The evaluation of Project Crewe demonstrated early promise through their use of family practitioners to lead multi-agency support under the supervision of a social worker. This model is being tested further by Coventry City Council under the CSCIP round three.
Statutory guidance, ‘Working together to safeguard children 2018’: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-together-to-safeguard-children--2, makes clear that when it comes to early help, children and families may benefit from co-ordinated support from local agencies, and it is right that organisations work together to assess the need for support, and provide targeted services that improve the outcomes for children.
Asked by: Karen Lee (Labour - Lincoln)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of reinstating the Commissioning Support Programme; and whether his Department plans to develop an improved programme to support children’s services commissioners.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The department currently has no plans to reinstate the Commissioning Support Programme.
We are providing funding through our £200 million Children’s Social Care Innovation Programme to test new commissioning arrangements so that children and young people are matched to the right care placements to meet their needs.
We are developing central commissioning arrangements for secure children’s homes placements and will be providing seed funding for fostering partnerships to introduce new or expanded collaborative approaches for commissioning, sufficiency planning and integrated models of care.
We have set up a Residential Care Leadership Board to drive forward improvements in commissioning and share learning and best practice across the sector.
Asked by: Karen Lee (Labour - Lincoln)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when the Minister of State for Apprenticeships and Skills plans to respond to the letter of 9 July 2018 from the hon. Member for Lincoln on apprenticeships.
Answered by Anne Milton
A response to the letter was sent to the hon. Member for Lincoln on 11 September 2018.
Asked by: Karen Lee (Labour - Lincoln)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department plans to introduce the teaching of menstrual wellbeing in schools.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The national curriculum for science includes content on puberty and the menstrual cycle in key stages 2 and 3. The government also provides guidance on Sex and Relationship Education which outlines how and when schools can prepare girls and boys for puberty and menstruation.
Under reforms in the Children and Social Work Act 2017, all primary schools will be required to teach Relationships Education and all secondary schools to teach Relationships and Sex Education (RSE). We are also considering compulsory status for Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education.
To help reach evidence-based decisions on what these subjects may look like, the government has been conducting a thorough engagement process with a wide range of expert stakeholders. Departmental officials are currently analysing the evidence gathered during this process and intend to put new statutory guidance and regulations out for public consultation later in the year.