Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how membership of the Care Review Implementation Board of experts will be decided.
Answered by Will Quince
The National Implementation Board will include people with experience of leading transformational change and those with their own experience of the care system. We will set out more details about the board in due course.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if his Department will undertake urgent reforms to the childcare sector, including allocating adequate funding to ensure that staff are sufficiently well paid to provide high-quality, affordable childcare.
Answered by Will Quince
The department continues to look at ways to improve the cost, choice and availability of high-quality childcare and early education, in order to support parents and provide children with the best start in life.
The department has spent over £3.5 billion in each of the past three years on early education entitlements, and we are investing additional funding for those entitlements worth £160 million in the 2022/23 financial year, £180 million in the 2023/24 financial year and £170 million in the 2024/25 financial year, compared to the 2021/22 financial year. This is for local authorities to increase hourly rates paid to childcare providers and reflects cost pressures and changes in the number of eligible children anticipated at the time of the Spending Review.
With safety and quality at the heart, as a first step, the department will consult on ratio requirements to give childcare providers more flexibility and autonomy to make decisions about their settings and needs of their children.
The department recognises the huge contribution the early years workforce makes to giving every child the best start in life. Supporting this workforce continues to be a priority and we are in regular contact with local authorities and sector bodies to understand the pressures on childcare providers, including any issues related to recruitment and retention.
We are continuing to work proactively with the sector to build our understanding of the situation and how the department might support childcare providers in this area.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment the Government has made of the potential implications for its policies of the funding recommendations made by the independent review of children's social care.
Answered by Will Quince
On 23 May 2022, the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care published its final recommendations. On the same day, the department set out the actions it is taking to improve children’s social care and committed to publishing a detailed and ambitious implementation strategy in due course.
As the department develops an implementation strategy, we will consider the recommendations carefully, including cost implications and where legislation might be required.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the Government has plans to bring forward legislative proposals in response to the independent review of children's social care.
Answered by Will Quince
On 23 May 2022, the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care published its final recommendations. On the same day, the department set out the actions it is taking to improve children’s social care and committed to publishing a detailed and ambitious implementation strategy in due course.
As the department develops an implementation strategy, we will consider the recommendations carefully, including cost implications and where legislation might be required.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on funding for the care system in response to the independent review of children's social care.
Answered by Will Quince
On 23 May 2022, the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care published its final recommendations. On the same day, the department set out the actions it is taking to improve children’s social care and committed to publishing a detailed and ambitious implementation strategy in due course.
As the department develops an implementation strategy, we will consider the recommendations carefully, including cost implications and where legislation might be required.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Schools White Paper, if he will include the workforce framework contained in the School teachers' pay and conditions document.
Answered by Robin Walker
The Schools White Paper was published on 28 March 2022 and sets out our commitment to teaching being an attractive, high-status profession; we will recruit and retain the best teachers, in the subjects and areas they are needed most. The full publication can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/opportunity-for-all-strong-schools-with-great-teachers-for-your-child.
The School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD) is statutory guidance on pay and conditions for teachers. It applies to local authority maintained schools in England. The STPCD will be updated at the end of this year’s pay round to reflect the pay award for the 2022/23 academic year. The full document can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-teachers-pay-and-conditions.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, in reference to the Schools White Paper, if he will enable local authorities to support orphan schools in the event that Regional School Commissioners are unable to find a multi-academy trust to take those schools on.
Answered by Robin Walker
The government’s vision, as set out in the ‘Opportunity for all’ White Paper, is for a school-led system where every school is part of a family of schools in a strong multi academy trust (MAT).
Where a maintained school is eligible for intervention, the department will match it with a strong MAT sponsor that has the capacity to deliver sustained improvements. More than 7 out of 10 sponsored academies are now rated Good or Outstanding, compared to about 1 in 10 of the local authority maintained schools they replaced.
The department is working with Falcon Education Academies Trust and St Joseph’s Catholic MAT to pilot a new approach for maintained schools and academies that, for various reasons, cannot be placed with a strong MAT sponsor.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make it his policy to (a) automatically enrol for free school meals those school children who are eligible and (b) expand the eligibility criteria to include all children who meet the income criteria, regardless of their parents’ circumstances.
Answered by Will Quince
The provision of free school meals (FSM) to children from out-of-work families or those on low incomes is of the utmost importance to this government. Under the benefits-related criteria the department provides a free healthy meal to around 1.7 million children, ensuring they are well nourished and can concentrate, learn and achieve in the classroom.
Under this government, eligibility for FSM has been extended several times and to more groups of children than any other government over the past half a century, including the introduction of universal infant FSM, and further education FSM.
The department is also permanently extending FSM eligibility to children from all groups with no recourse to public funds. This will come into effect for the start of the summer term. We also want to make sure as many eligible pupils as possible are claiming their FSM, and to make it as simple as possible for schools and local authorities to determine eligibility.
To support this, the department provides an eligibility checking system to make the checking process as quick and straightforward as possible for schools and local authorities. We have also developed a model registration form to help schools encourage parents to sign up for FSM and provide guidance to Jobcentre Plus advisers so that they can make Universal Credit recipients aware that they may also be entitled to wider benefits, including FSM.
As announced in the Spring Statement, the government is continuing to provide targeted cost of living support for households most in need. From April, the government is providing an additional £500 million to help households with the cost of household essentials, on top of what we have already provided since October 2021, bringing the total funding for this support to £1 billion.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will review the £7,400 income threshold for free school meals in response to the rising cost of living and inflation.
Answered by Will Quince
The provision of free school meals (FSM) to children from out-of-work families or those on low incomes is of the utmost importance to this government. Under the benefits-related criteria the department provides a free healthy meal to around 1.7 million children, ensuring they are well nourished and can concentrate, learn and achieve in the classroom.
Under this government, eligibility for FSM has been extended several times and to more groups of children than any other government over the past half a century, including the introduction of universal infant FSM, and further education FSM.
The department is also permanently extending FSM eligibility to children from all groups with no recourse to public funds. This will come into effect for the start of the summer term. We also want to make sure as many eligible pupils as possible are claiming their FSM, and to make it as simple as possible for schools and local authorities to determine eligibility.
To support this, the department provides an eligibility checking system to make the checking process as quick and straightforward as possible for schools and local authorities. We have also developed a model registration form to help schools encourage parents to sign up for FSM and provide guidance to Jobcentre Plus advisers so that they can make Universal Credit recipients aware that they may also be entitled to wider benefits, including FSM.
As announced in the Spring Statement, the government is continuing to provide targeted cost of living support for households most in need. From April, the government is providing an additional £500 million to help households with the cost of household essentials, on top of what we have already provided since October 2021, bringing the total funding for this support to £1 billion.