Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make it her policy to allow parents to claim funded hours for their child if they are cared for by a registered childminder who is also a member of their extended family.
Answered by David Johnston
Childminders are a key part of the childcare market and they will play a significant part in the government’s increased early years entitlements offer.
Funding made available in the dedicated schools grant (DSG) for the entitlements to early education for two, three and four-year-olds cannot be claimed by, or spent on, childminders providing childcare for related children. This restriction is placed on local authorities funding relatives and is set out in the Childcare Act 2006 (the 2006 Act) Section 18(4)(c). The 2006 Act specifically excludes care provided for a child by a parent or other relative, and section 18(8)(c) of the 2006 Act states that a relative, in relation to a child, means ‘a grandparent, aunt, uncle, brother or sister, whether of the full blood or half blood or by marriage or civil partnership’.
This approach avoids creating an incentive for adults to register to become childminders and being paid to look after related children that they are already looking after on an informal basis.
A local authority can choose to fund a childminder providing care for a related child. However, this would have to be from the local authority funds that are independent of the DSG.
In the case of a nursery or pre-school, the funding is not necessarily paid to an individual who is caring for a relative, but to the setting which provides early education to a group of children, which may include a child related to a member of staff.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many school classrooms were closed due to maintenance and structural issues in the most recent 12-month period for which data are available.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Nothing is more important than the safety of children and staff. It has always been the case that where we are made aware of a building that may pose an immediate risk, immediate action is taken.
It is the responsibility of those who run schools – academy trusts, Local Authorities, and voluntary aided school bodies – who work with their schools on a day to day basis, to manage the maintenance of their schools. The Department does not therefore hold information on the number of buildings closed due to maintenance and structural issues.
The Department will always put the safety and wellbeing of children and staff in schools and colleges at the heart of its policy decisions. The Government has taken more proactive action to identify and mitigate RAAC in education settings than the devolved administrations in the UK, or indeed, governments overseas.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much funding has been provided through the National Tutoring Programme in Blackburn in each month since it that programme was launched.
Answered by Jonathan Gullis
The Department does not hold information on Tuition Partners or Academic Mentors in the required format at constituency level.
School-led tutoring grant allocations by school and local authority for the academic year 2021 to 2022 have been published at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1071234/School_Led_Funding_Publication_File_flat_values_v1.ods
Payment information relating to School-Led Tutoring for the academic year 2021 to 2022 will be published by the Education and Skills Funding Agency once the reconciliation process has been completed for that period.
School-led tutoring grant allocations for the academic year 2022 to 2023 have been published at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-tutoring-programme-ntp-allocations-for-2022-to-2023-academic-year.
Between November 2020 and June 2022, over two million tuition courses were started. The Government has committed more than £1 billion to support tutoring over academic years 2020 to 2023/24, during which we aim to offer up to six million tutoring courses.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans he has for the allocation of funding resulting from the forecast underspend for the National Tutoring Programme.
Answered by Robin Walker
The department will continue to support the progress of tutoring through the three flexible routes to high-quality tutoring (school-led tutoring, tuition partners and academic mentors) and will consider in-year adjustments to ensure schools continue offering the type of tutoring that best suits their pupils to maximise the benefits of the programme.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the budgetary pressures on schools in Lancashire.
Answered by Robin Walker
This government continues to deliver, year on year, real terms per pupil increases to school funding with the total core schools budget increasing to £56.8 billion by financial year 2024-25 (compared to £49.8 billion in the 2021-22 financial year).
Future increases in funding have been frontloaded to rapidly get money to schools. In the financial year 2022-23 alone, core schools funding will increase nationally by £4 billion compared to 2021-22, a 5% real terms per pupil boost. This includes an additional £1.2 billion for schools in the new schools supplementary grant for financial year 2022-23.
In Lancashire, funding through the dedicated schools grant and the indicative figures for the schools supplementary grant for mainstream schools combined, is forecast to see an extra £53.6 million for schools in financial year 2022-23, an increase of 5.6% per pupil. This per pupil funding increase excludes “growth” funding, which is additional funding provided for schools seeing significant increases in pupil numbers. This takes total funding for 2022–23 in Lancashire to over £903 million. This will help schools rise to the challenges of COVID-19, increase teacher pay, and meet the cost of the Health and Social Care Levy, while continuing their work to raise attainment.
On top of the core funding uplift for schools, at Spending Review 2021 the department has announced a further £1.8 billion of new funding nationally, specifically for recovery for those the department knows will need it most. This takes overall investment specifically dedicated towards pupils’ recovery to almost £5 billion.
The department pays close attention to the financial health of the sector. The latest published data on schools’ revenue reserves shows schools on average have been able to add to their reserves in the 2020-21 financial year. At the end of the 2020-21 financial year, 92% of maintained schools were in cumulative surplus or breaking even, compared to 88% the previous year. The percentage of maintained schools in Lancashire operating with a cumulative surplus by the end of 2020-21 increased to 95%, compared to 92% at the end of financial year 2019-20. All schools continue to be able to access a wide range of school resource management tools. Schools in serious financial difficulty should contact their local authority or the Education and Skills Funding Agency.
The department’s analysis of the cost pressures schools face are published annually in the schools’ costs technical note which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/schools-costs-technical-note.
Analysis for financial year 2021-22 will be published shortly.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many (a) pupils are eligible for digital devices and (b) digital devices have (i) been and (ii) yet to be delivered in each region.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government is investing over £400 million to support access to remote education and online social care services securing 1.3 million laptops and tablets for disadvantaged children and young people. This includes over 750,000 laptops and tablets that have been delivered to schools, trusts and local authorities by the end of last week.
Figures on the number of devices delivered, including by local authority, is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/laptops-tablets-and-4g-wireless-routers-progress-data. These figures are broken down by local authority and academy trust, depending on which organisation ordered devices. Information on delivery by region is not available.
Our overall commitment of 1.3 million devices is comparable with Ofcom’s UK-wide estimate that between 1.14 million and 1.78 million children in total in the UK have no home access to a laptop, desktop, or tablet. We have allocated devices based on recent data on the number of pupils eligible for free school meals.
We have also partnered with the UK’s leading mobile operators to provide free data to help disadvantaged children get online as well as delivering 4G wireless routers for pupils without connection at home.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to increase funding for special needs education.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Nationally, high needs funding has risen by £1 billion since 2013-14, to just under £6 billion in 2018-19, and will rise to over £6 billion in 2019-20. The additional £1.3 billion announced last year for schools and high needs is above and beyond what was promised at the 2015 spending review, and means that local authorities received an additional £140 million in high needs funding in 2018-19. Allocations for each local authority this year can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dedicated-schools-grant-dsg-2018-to-2019.
Each local authority will attract a 1% increase in underlying funding per head of the population aged 2-18 years old in 2018-19 compared to 2017-18, following the increase of 0.5% they attracted last year. Underfunded authorities will continue to see higher increases – of up to 6% per head of of the population aged 2-18 years old, compared to 2017-18.
We are listening to the concerns that some have expressed about the pressures on high needs budgets. We are monitoring the impact of our national funding formula for high needs on local authority spending decisions, and are keeping the overall amount of funding for high needs under review.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the effect of the public sector pay freeze on levels of recruitment and retention in the teaching profession.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The public sector pay cap is no longer in place and the Department has adopted a more flexible approach to public sector pay. The Remit letter from my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State to the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) said that the STRB should utilise this flexibility to target the next pay award to promote recruitment and retention.
Research suggests that pay is not the main driver of teachers leaving, and teachers do not tend to leave for better paid jobs.
The fundamental changes to teachers’ pay that have been introduced over the last four years following the STRB’s recommendations have given greater autonomy to schools to decide how to reward their staff. This increased flexibility helps schools to attract and retain the best teachers and to target any school-level recruitment and retention problems they may have, including addressing teacher shortages in specific subjects.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment his Department has made of the effect of regional inequality on educational attainment.
Answered by Nick Gibb
I refer the hon. Member for Blackburn to the answer I gave on 3 July 2018 to Question 157180 which included links to the available attainment data, split by region, for Key Stage 2, 4 and 16-18 study: https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2018-06-25/157180/.
The Government wants to create a country where everyone has the best start in life, no matter what their background is or where they live. Projects are being funded to raise pupils’ outcomes from an early age, train strong school leaders and support schools as well as improving outcomes for children in parts of the country that have faced long-term challenges.
The Department’s £72 million Opportunity Areas programme is investing in 12 areas of the country facing challenges, including five areas in the north of England. These areas will also benefit from a share of £22 million through a new Essential Life Skills programme, to help young people develop life skills in resilience, wellbeing and employability.
This builds on progress made since 2010, with 1.9 million more children in England now in good or outstanding schools, record numbers of young people in education or training - including one million apprenticeships in the north of England - and more disadvantaged pupils now going to university.
The Northern Powerhouse programme includes £3.4 billion of investment in projects to boost the local economy, £12 million to spread good teaching practice in English and improve early literacy, and schemes that help families to support their child’s education at home.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department has made a comparative assessment of trends in the level of (a) sure start centres and (b) child benefit claims.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Department for Education has not made a comparative assessment. The social mobility action plan, ‘Unlocking Talent, Fulfilling Potential’, sets a clear direction for all those who have a part to play, including those responsible for children’s centres. Our focus now is on delivering this, including through a £10 million investment to build the evidence base for what works, and the £8.5 million local government programme, working with the Local Government Association. Through this programme of local authority peer support and challenge we will work with sector leaders to identify best practice in closing the gap between disadvantaged children and their peers, including through children’s centres.