Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to mitigate the impact of rising inflation on post-16 budgets in schools.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2021 (SR21) settlement will provide an extra £1.6 billion for 16-19 education in 2024/25 compared with the 2021/22 financial year in real terms, at the time of the announcement in October 2021. This includes funding to cover the rising demographic of students, additional hours for all 16 to 19-year-olds, aid the recovery of lost learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and for increased take-up of T Levels.
The well-established system of lagged funding for 16-19 education, including further education colleges, sixth forms and school, provides institutions with clear allocations each year based on student data, allowing them to make plans with confidence. Subject to affordability, where institutions see a particularly large increase in student numbers in a year, they typically qualify for exceptional in-year growth funding to help them with the extra costs of these students.
The department has announced how the additional funding from the SR21 will be used for this academic year, 2022/23, including increasing the 16-19 national funding rate from £4,188 to £4,542, the High Value Courses Premium for the most economically valuable subjects from £400 to £600, and looked-after children and care leaver rates from £480 to £504. This follows the extra £691 million allocated in the previous two years and the specific funding made available to help recovery from the pandemic, including the 16-19 Tuition Fund which will make available £400 million over the four academic years from 2020/21 to 2023/24.
In addition, we are investing £3.8 billion more in further education and skills over the course of the Parliament as a whole, to ensure people can access high-quality training and education that leads to good jobs, addresses skills gaps, boosts productivity, and supports levelling up. This will support the sector to reform and deliver the technical, skilled education our economy needs.
The department is aware of the pressures rising inflation is causing providers of post-16 education. The government has announced the Government Energy Bill Relief Scheme, to support non-domestic customers, including further education colleges, sixth forms and schools. The department will continue to monitor the situation to determine our next steps.
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the report published on 24 October by the Institute for Fiscal Studies on Latest trends in further education and sixth form spending in England, what steps she is taking to ensure Further Education Colleges have sufficient funding to meet increased demand in the next five years.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2021 (SR21) settlement will provide an extra £1.6 billion for 16-19 education in 2024/25 compared with the 2021/22 financial year in real terms, at the time of the announcement in October 2021. This includes funding to cover the rising demographic of students, additional hours for all 16 to 19-year-olds, aid the recovery of lost learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and for increased take-up of T Levels.
The well-established system of lagged funding for 16-19 education, including further education colleges, sixth forms and school, provides institutions with clear allocations each year based on student data, allowing them to make plans with confidence. Subject to affordability, where institutions see a particularly large increase in student numbers in a year, they typically qualify for exceptional in-year growth funding to help them with the extra costs of these students.
The department has announced how the additional funding from the SR21 will be used for this academic year, 2022/23, including increasing the 16-19 national funding rate from £4,188 to £4,542, the High Value Courses Premium for the most economically valuable subjects from £400 to £600, and looked-after children and care leaver rates from £480 to £504. This follows the extra £691 million allocated in the previous two years and the specific funding made available to help recovery from the pandemic, including the 16-19 Tuition Fund which will make available £400 million over the four academic years from 2020/21 to 2023/24.
In addition, we are investing £3.8 billion more in further education and skills over the course of the Parliament as a whole, to ensure people can access high-quality training and education that leads to good jobs, addresses skills gaps, boosts productivity, and supports levelling up. This will support the sector to reform and deliver the technical, skilled education our economy needs.
The department is aware of the pressures rising inflation is causing providers of post-16 education. The government has announced the Government Energy Bill Relief Scheme, to support non-domestic customers, including further education colleges, sixth forms and schools. The department will continue to monitor the situation to determine our next steps.
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to promote (a) recruitment and (b) retention of staff in further education colleges.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The department continues to support the further education (FE) sector with the recruitment, retention, and development of teachers through a package of support in the 2022/23 academic year. This includes a new national FE recruitment campaign and teach in FE service to support prospective FE teachers into jobs. This is expected to reach millions of prospective FE teaching staff, and target those with valuable experience and skills in industry to train the next generation of technical experts. Our Taking Teaching Further programme is supporting industry experts to move into FE teaching, and the department is providing bursaries worth up to £26,000, each tax-free, which are available to support FE teacher training in priority subject areas for 2022/23. We are also investing in the quality of existing FE teachers through the T Level Professional Development programme, which has supported over 15,000 staff to deliver the new T Level qualifications.
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of childcare provision in Bristol South constituency.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
The key measure of sufficiency of childcare provision is whether the supply of available places is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents and children. Ofsted data currently shows that the number of places offered by providers on the Early Years Register has remained broadly stable at 1.3 million places since August 2015.
Officials from the department also discuss sufficiency of provision in regular conversations with local authorities.
Under Section 6 of the Childcare Act 2006, local authorities are responsible for ensuring sufficient childcare places in their area. The department has not been made aware by any local authority of any current sufficiency problem. Bristol City Council, which holds the statutory duty to secure sufficient childcare in Bristol South constituency, is not reporting any issues around provision.
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the effect of the reduction in apprenticeship starts at Levels 2 and 3 on social mobility in deprived areas.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
We want to ensure that more people from disadvantaged backgrounds can undertake apprenticeships, particularly those that offer higher wage returns and progression opportunities, and we continue to look at how the programme is supporting those from deprived areas.
Employers decide which apprenticeships they offer and when in order to address their skills needs. High-quality apprenticeships at levels 2 and 3 remain an important part of our programme, supporting people from all backgrounds to gain the skills they need to begin or progress in their career. In the first half of 2020/21 academic year, there were 110,500 apprenticeship starts at levels 2 and 3 - over two-thirds of all starts in this period.
We are supporting more people from disadvantaged and under-represented backgrounds to access apprenticeships through our Apprenticeship Diversity Champions Network of over 85 employers. The Network promotes best practice in recruiting and supporting apprentices from diverse backgrounds. In addition, our Apprenticeships Support and Knowledge programme supports schools across England to provide students from diverse backgrounds with information on apprenticeships.
Smaller employers play an important role in providing apprenticeship opportunities across the country, particularly for young people and those in deprived areas. To support more smaller employers to offer apprenticeships all SMEs can now reserve funding for up to 10 new apprenticeship starts in 2021-22 financial year. Employers of all sizes can also benefit from the increased incentive payment of £3000 for taking on an apprentice as a new employee.
Through our Plan for Jobs, we are also providing a range of support to help young people from disadvantaged backgrounds access high-quality training to develop the skills, experience, and confidence to obtain an apprenticeship. We are supporting the largest-ever expansion of traineeships, providing funding for an additional 30,000 places in 2020/21 academic year, and we are working with the Department for Work and Pensions to enable Kickstart placements to turn into apprenticeships where that is the right thing for the employer and the young person. We have made a special provision to allow employers taking on Kickstarters as apprentices to be eligible for the incentive payment, supporting a pathway between the schemes.
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the effect of the T-level roll out for 2021-22 on social mobility in deprived areas.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
T Levels are new, gold standard qualifications that, when fully rolled out, will boost access to high-quality technical education for thousands of young people so they can progress to the next level, whether that is getting a job, going on to further study or an apprenticeship. Designed by over 250 leading employers, T Levels will have real currency in the labour market and help more young people from all backgrounds to access skilled work.
From September 2021, over 100 providers situated across the country will deliver T Levels and we have ensured they are represented in Opportunity Areas. The rollout of T Levels will continue with all 24 subjects available by 2023. T Levels started in September 2020, so students have yet to complete their courses. The department has an evaluation programme in place to assess the impact of T Levels, which will include consideration of the impact on disadvantaged students and groups, but it will take some years to assess the full impact of the programme for disadvantaged students and for social mobility.
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the Association of Colleges survey which found that three quarters of 16 to 18 year olds are performing below normal expectations, as a result of the covid-19 outbreak; and what steps he is taking in response to that matter.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
We are currently looking at a wide range of proposals that will support education recovery across all age groups, working with the Education Recovery Commissioner, Sir Kevan Collins. The department is working closely with the Association of Colleges and other sector representative bodies to develop these proposals.
I am meeting with the Association of Colleges very soon and will be discussing the findings from their survey.
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department plans to take to increase the number of teachers required to deliver the measures outlined in the Skills for Jobs.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
The reforms set out in the Skills for Jobs White Paper cannot succeed without outstanding teachers and teaching. The measures announced in the Skills for Jobs white paper come with a total investment of over £65 million in financial year 2021-22, allowing us to deliver greater support for teacher recruitment, retention, and development.
As set out in the white paper, we will launch a national recruitment campaign for teachers in further education (FE) settings and will strengthen Initial Teacher Education so that it is based on clear employer-led standards. We will also continue to offer financial support for FE teacher training in priority subjects and our Taking Teaching Further programme will continue to help industry experts retrain as FE teachers.
In addition to our continuing T Level Professional Development programme, we will also increase the provision of high-quality professional development, including early career and post-COVID-19 support for online and a mixture of remote and face-to-face teaching. We will also facilitate a stronger relationship between industry and education and training providers through the introduction of a new national Workforce and Industry Exchange programme.
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to improve the quality of traineeships.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
We know that traineeships have significant positive outcomes for young people. 66% of trainees progressed into work, an apprenticeship or further learning in 2018/19 academic year, the year after they completed their traineeship.
We are supporting the largest ever expansion of traineeships, providing funding for an additional 30,000 places in 2020/21 academic year, to ensure that more young people have access to high-quality training. We have extended the £1,000 incentive payments for employers who offer traineeship work placement opportunities to July 2022. We are also providing an additional £126 million to create a further 43,000 places in 2021/22 academic year.
In response to the COVID-19 outbreak we have also introduced flexibilities to enable traineeships to support more young people into work wherever possible. These include extending the maximum duration from 6 to 12 months and extending the programme eligibility to include young people with level 3 qualifications who require support to access an apprenticeship or other employment.
We are working with employers to develop new traineeships which will provide young people with a tailored springboard into their chosen industries. From May 2021 we will start to deliver the first ever traineeships developed alongside trade bodies and employers specifically for construction and rail, with further sectors to follow in the summer. These traineeships will be aligned to apprenticeship standards and will significantly increase the opportunities for young people to progress into apprenticeships or other employment.
To help improve traineeship quality and share best practice, we run provider webinars through the Association of Colleges and the Association of Employment and Learning Providers. We have introduced one-to-one meetings with providers to discuss their programmes and achievements with them.
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the financial effect on colleges of clawback of adult education funding.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
We are lowering the reconciliation threshold for Education and Skills Funding Agency grant funded Adult Education Budget (AEB) adult skills, including non-formula funded community learning and 19-24 traineeships, and Advanced Learner Loan Bursary fund providers for 2020 to 2021, from 97% and 100% respectively to 90%.
Our primary aim is to support providers to continue to deliver as much quality provision as possible, including above the 90% threshold, whether that be face to face where permitted, online or otherwise remotely, and including through subcontracting (for AEB-funded provision only) where that is in line with our subcontracting conditions set out in the rules and contracts.
We acknowledge the situation is still difficult for providers but equally we know that many providers have been able to deliver very successfully remotely during lockdown and the return to face to face learning should enhance further providers’ ability to deliver.
We are announcing this change now, to help providers plan their provision better for the remainder of the 2020/21 academic year.
In areas where the AEB has been devolved, Mayoral Combined Authorities or the Greater London Authority are responsible for considering any provider flexibilities in their areas.
For those providers who are eligible and are at risk of insolvency, they would be referred to the Insolvency Regime or emergency funding process.
We are monitoring the situation carefully and, in particular, if there are providers that may need further support.