Asked by: Kelly Tolhurst (Conservative - Rochester and Strood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what role local authorities will have in school place planning under the proposals in her Department's White Paper, Educational excellence everywhere, published in March 2016.
Answered by Edward Timpson
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Kelly Tolhurst (Conservative - Rochester and Strood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether local authorities will retain responsibility for school deficits under the proposals in her Department's White Paper, Educational excellence everywhere, published in March 2016.
Answered by Edward Timpson
Deficits for schools which convert to become sponsored academies remain with the local authority. These deficits remain with their local authority as these schools were the responsibility of the authority when they were found to be failing or underperforming and it is the authority’s responsibility for ensuring the school managed its expenditure satisfactorily. Guidance on how deficits for converter and sponsored academies are dealt with is available on GOV.UK at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/416430/School_balances_on_conversion_submission.pdf
Local authorities are responsible for ensuring the financial viability of maintained schools and ensuring any deficits are cleared within 3 years.
Asked by: Kelly Tolhurst (Conservative - Rochester and Strood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the practical implications of schools having their own admissions criteria under a fully-academised system; and how local authorities will manage that situation.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The schools white paper, ‘Educational Excellence Everywhere’, sets out the Government’s aim that every school should become an academy. In this context, it also sets out our intention to seek views on a number of changes to the admissions system to support parents in understanding how to get a place at their local schools.
As part of this, we will seek views on requiring the Local Authority to take on greater responsibility for certain admissions functions – in particular, co-ordinating in-year admissions and handling the administration of the independent appeal panels for all schools (including academies) in their area. These changes will make the system clearer and simpler for parents to navigate.
Any parent who has concerns regarding an individual school’s admission arrangements will continue to be able to refer an objection to the Office of the Schools Adjudicator. We intend to streamline the functions of the Office of the Schools Adjudicator so that objections to admission arrangements are resolved more quickly.
The white paper is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/educational-excellence-everywhere.
Asked by: Kelly Tolhurst (Conservative - Rochester and Strood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department plans to take to improve the performance of schools in parts of the country where there has been persistent underperformance.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Our reforms are delivering much needed improvement to our education system. Ofsted inspection data shows that sponsored academies are transforming the life chances of over 350,000 pupils by raising standards in their schools. But there are too many areas of the country where, for too long, children have not had the Education they deserve.
Our strategy for Achieving Excellence Areas will tackle entrenched underperformance in areas where low school standards have been allowed for too long. We look forward to working with the first areas from this autumn.