Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure that new investment in further education contributes to (a) improving staff conditions and (b) closing pay gaps between college and school teachers.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government is committed to ensuring there is a thriving further education (FE) sector, which is vital to our missions to break down the barriers to opportunity and deliver economic growth.
At the October 2024 Budget, my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer set out an additional £300 million for FE revenue funding to ensure young people are developing the skills this country needs, as well as £300 million new capital funding to address condition and capacity issues in the FE estate. The department will set out in due course how this funding will be distributed.
This investment is on top of around an additional £600 million in FE across the 2024/25 and 2025/26 financial years. This includes extending retention payments of up to £6,000 after tax for eligible early career FE teachers in key subject areas,
The government does not set pay or conditions within FE. This remains the responsibility of individual providers. However, the department continues to support the sector to recruit and retain expert teachers. We have continued to offer financial incentives for those undertaking teacher training for the FE sector in priority subject areas, worth up to £30,000 each, tax free. Additionally, the department is supporting industry professionals to enter the teaching workforce through the Taking Teaching Further programme.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether levels of food insecurity will be a key metric of the Child Poverty Taskforce.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Tackling child poverty is at the heart of breaking down barriers to opportunity and improving the life chances for every child. For too many children, living in poverty robs them of the opportunity to learn and prosper.
Child poverty has increased by 700,000 since 2010, with over four million children now growing up in a low-income family. This not only harms children’s lives but also damages their future prospects and holds back our society and economy.
With this in mind, the Child Poverty Taskforce will drive forward action across government to reduce child poverty, including considering a range of metrics which can be tracked. These will be published in the government’s Child Poverty Strategy in the spring.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she is taking steps through education settings to help reduce child hygiene poverty.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Tackling child poverty is at the heart of breaking down barriers to opportunity and improving the life chances for every child. For too many children, living in poverty robs them of the opportunity to learn and to prosper.
On 17 July 2024, my Right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister, announced the appointment of the Secretary of State for Work and Pension and the Secretary of State for Education to be the joint leads of a new ministerial taskforce to begin work on a child poverty strategy.
This urgent work has started and the ministerial taskforce will harness all available levers to drive forward short-term and long-term actions across government to reduce child poverty, with a child poverty strategy published in spring next year.
The department is working with the Department of Health and Social Care to deliver supervised toothbrushing for 3 to 5 year olds in the most deprived communities. These programmes prevent tooth decay and encourage toothbrushing routines at home.
In addition, the period product scheme continues to provide schools and colleges with access to a wide range of period products for their learners. Since its launch in 2020, 99% of secondary schools and 94% of colleges in England have used the scheme.
Furthermore, the government has announced an extension of the Household Support Fund for a further six months, from 1 October 2024 until 31 March 2025. In England, an additional £421 million will be provided to enable the extension of the Fund to support the cost of essentials, plus funding for the devolved governments through the Barnett formula to be spent at their discretion, as usual.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of the provision of special educational needs and disability services for children in City of Durham constituency.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission inspected local arrangements for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in County Durham in June 2024. The report is due to be published in August 2024.
County Durham is part of the department's Delivering Better Value (DBV) programme. The DBV programme, which was established by the previous government, aims to work with selected authorities to review how services are structured and delivered to achieve better outcomes for children and young people with SEND in a sustainable way. The DBV programme achieves this by helping each of the participating local areas complete a diagnostic to work out the root causes of their challenges and identify local opportunities to sustainably improve the outcomes and experiences of the children and young people with SEND in their care.
On completion of their diagnostic, County Durham created an action plan to address their key local challenges and implement service reforms. Based on this, the department provided grant funding of £1 million to support the delivery of their plans.
This government is committed to providing the necessary support to improve the experiences for children and young people with SEND and their families. The department is committed to taking a community-wide approach, to improving inclusivity and expertise in mainstream schools and alternative provision settings, and to ensure that special schools cater to those with the most complex needs.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the impact of the tuition fee-based funding model on the financial stability of the higher education sector.
Answered by Luke Hall
As autonomous organisations, higher education (HE) providers have a high degree of financial independence and it is for them to make appropriate and necessary decisions around income, funding, spending and borrowing which ensure their continued financial viability and sustainability.
The department believes that the current fee freeze achieves the best balance between ensuring that the system remains financially sustainable, offering good value for the taxpayer and reducing debt levels for students in real terms.
The Office for Students (OfS), as the regulator of HE in England, is responsible for monitoring the financial sustainability of registered HE providers. The department continues to work closely with the OfS and other parties including providers, mission groups and other government departments to understand the ongoing impacts and changing landscape of financial sustainability across the sector.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has placed a ban on all inter-year transfers to St Leonard's Catholic School in City of Durham.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The Secretary of State for Education would not have powers to place a ban on inter-year transfers to St Leonard's Catholic School in the City of Durham.
Parents can apply for a place for their child at any school at any time. An application after the start of the school year for a place in the normal year of entry (usually Year 7 in a secondary school), or for any other year group, is called an “in-year” application. The School Admissions Code sets out requirements in relation to in-year admissions.
Where an application is received for a year which is not the normal year of entry, the admission authority can only refuse if the admission of another child would “prejudice the provision of efficient education or efficient use of resources”.
Where in-year applications are received for the normal year of entry, the admission authority must admit children up to the Published Admission Number (PAN).
If an admission authority (in this case, Bishop Wilkinson Catholic Academy Trust) wishes to change the PAN for Year 7, they would need to submit a request to vary the published admission arrangements (which include the PAN) to the Secretary of State for Education.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to page 9 of the document entitled SEND and alternative provision improvement plan, published on 2 March 2023, when her Department plans to publish guidance to support effective transitions between (a) all stages of education and (b) into employment and adult services.
Answered by David Johnston
The special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and alternative provision (AP) Improvement Plan, published on 2 March 2023, outlines the government’s mission to establish a single, national SEND and AP system. Alongside this, the department published a roadmap which summarises the actions set out in the Improvement Plan to improve the SEND and AP system in England. The SEND and AP improvement plan can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/send-and-alternative-provision-improvement-plan. The roadmap can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/send-and-alternative-provision-improvement-plan/send-and-alternative-provision-roadmap.
As part of this roadmap, the department committed to publishing this guidance by the end of 2025.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will bring forward legislative proposals to allow for mitigating circumstances for pupils whose education has been disrupted due to the presence of RAAC.
Answered by Damian Hinds
Ofqual is the independent regulator of examinations and qualifications in England, and its statutory objectives are set out in Section 128 of the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009. These include securing that ’regulated qualifications give a reliable indication of knowledge, skills and understanding’, and that ’regulated qualifications indicate a consistent level of attainment (including over time) between comparable regulated qualifications’.
It is important to ensure that all students taking comparable exams and assessments are assessed to the same standard in order to maintain qualification standards and public confidence in qualifications. If different standards are applied for different groups of students, then the qualification will cease to provide a reliable indication of the knowledge, skills and understanding that it is intended to measure.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what guidance her Department issues on the minimum temperature at which a temporary classroom can be safely used.
Answered by Damian Hinds
Guidance on recommended temperatures for classrooms are included in the energy efficiency guidance for schools. This guidance is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/energy-efficiency-guidance-for-the-school-and-fe-college-estate/energy-efficiency-guidance-for-the-school-and-further-education-college-estate#heating.
More generally, the Health and Safety Executive’s published guidance includes the recommended minimum temperature for working indoors. This guidance can be found at: https://www.hse.gov.uk/temperature/employer/index.htm.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether all (a) books, (b) coursework and (c) other items have been retrieved from inaccessible parts of St Leonard’s Catholic School since September 2023.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The department funded and co-ordinated the decant of items from inaccessible parts of St Leonard’s Catholic School during the October 2023 half-term. The list of items for retrieval was provided by the school and these were recovered during this decant. In December 2023, the school advised officials that there were further items that they required. These were recovered on 6 December.