Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the impact of increases in the cost of living on the accessibility of higher education for students in Greater Manchester.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
The government publishes an Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) is each year to analyse the impact of changes to higher education (HE) student support in England on students with protected characteristics and those from low-income families. The EIA for the 2024/25 academic year was published on GOV.UK on 26 January 2024 and is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/higher-education-student-finance-2024-to-2025-equality-analysis.
The department has continued to increase maximum loans and grants for living and other costs for undergraduate and postgraduate students each year with a 2.8% increase for the current academic year, 2023/24, and a further 2.5% increase announced for 2024/25.
In addition, the department has frozen maximum tuition fees for the 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years. By 2024/25, maximum fees will have been frozen for seven successive years. 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 government understands the pressures people have been facing with the cost of living and has taken action to help. The department has already made £276 million of student premium and mental health funding available for the 2023/24 academic year to support successful outcomes for students including disadvantaged students.
The department has also made a further £10 million of one-off support available to support student mental health and hardship funding for 2023/24. This funding will complement the help universities are providing through their own bursary, scholarship and hardship support schemes. For this financial year, 2024/25, the department has increased the Student Premium (full-time, part-time, and disabled premium) by £5 million to reflect high demand for hardship support. Further details of this allocation for the academic year 2024/25 will be announced by the Office for Students (OfS) in the summer.
Overall, support to households to help with the high cost of living is worth £108 billion over 2022/23 to 2024/25, an average of £3,800 per UK household. The government believes this will have eased the pressure on family budgets and so will in turn enable many families to provide additional support to their children in HE to help them meet increased living costs.
English domiciled 18 year olds from the most disadvantaged areas are now 74% more likely to enter HE than they were in 2010, and the department is working to close the disadvantage gap with our access and participation reforms.
The department has tasked the OfS to include support for disadvantaged students before entry to HE in new access and participation plans. Providers should be working meaningfully with schools to ensure that pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds are encouraged and supported to achieve the highest possible grades and follow the path that is best for them, whether that be an apprenticeship or higher technical qualification, or a course at another university.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 19 February 2024 to Question 13342 on Special Educational Needs, if she will allocate additional funding to Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council to help increase its capacity to conduct education health and care plan assessments.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The cost of local authorities’ Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment and planning function is paid from authorities’ general fund from, for example, council tax, business rates or the Revenue Support Grant provided by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC). Any increase in capacity for the EHC needs assessment team must be met from the local authority’s general fund.
Stockport special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) Local Area Partnership’s Accelerated Progress Plan (APP), which has been in place since the Ofsted and Care Quality Commission (CQC) joint area SEND revisit in September 2022, includes actions to address the quality of EHC plans in the area. Department for Education officials and NHS (England) SEND advisers have been providing support, challenge and advice in monitoring the progress of the APP.
Stockport is also one of the 55 local areas which have been invited to join the government’s £85 million Delivering Better Value Programme to support local areas to achieve maximum value for money in delivering SEND provision, whilst maintaining and improving the outcomes they achieve. One of the workstreams being funded by this grant is ‘Governance and Accountability of SEN Support and EHC Needs Assessments’ through which the department is assisting Stockport to improve their EHC plan processes and the quality of plans.
The department wants to ensure that EHC needs assessments, where required, are conducted as quickly as possible, so that children and young people can access the support they need. In March 2023, the government set out its plans to reform and improve the SEND system through its SEND and alternative provision (AP) Improvement Plan. The plan commits to establishing a single national system that delivers for every child and young person with SEND so that they enjoy their childhood, achieve good outcomes and are well prepared for adulthood and employment.
In the short term, the department is working hard to improve the current EHC plan system through a range of measures to improve the SEND system. The department is investing heavily in the SEND system. Examples of the department’s investments include: improving specialist capacity by investing over £21 million to train 400 more educational psychologists from 2024, investing £2.6 billion between 2022 and 2025 to fund new special and AP places and improve existing provision (including announcing 41 new special free schools and 38 special free schools that are currently in the pipeline), investing £30 million to develop innovative approaches for short breaks for children, young people and their families over three years and investing over £7 million to fund extension of the Alternative Provision Specialist Taskforce pilot programme, (delivering now in 22 local authorities) to run until 2025.
The department is also putting in place measures to improve the SEND system in the longer term, so that where an EHC plan is needed they can be issued as quickly as possible, so that children and young people can access the support they need.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 19 February 2024 to Question 13342 on Special Educational Needs, what steps her Department is taking to help Stockport Council (a) increase its capacity to undertake and (b) improve the quality of its education, health and care plan assessments.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The cost of local authorities’ Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment and planning function is paid from authorities’ general fund from, for example, council tax, business rates or the Revenue Support Grant provided by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC). Any increase in capacity for the EHC needs assessment team must be met from the local authority’s general fund.
Stockport special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) Local Area Partnership’s Accelerated Progress Plan (APP), which has been in place since the Ofsted and Care Quality Commission (CQC) joint area SEND revisit in September 2022, includes actions to address the quality of EHC plans in the area. Department for Education officials and NHS (England) SEND advisers have been providing support, challenge and advice in monitoring the progress of the APP.
Stockport is also one of the 55 local areas which have been invited to join the government’s £85 million Delivering Better Value Programme to support local areas to achieve maximum value for money in delivering SEND provision, whilst maintaining and improving the outcomes they achieve. One of the workstreams being funded by this grant is ‘Governance and Accountability of SEN Support and EHC Needs Assessments’ through which the department is assisting Stockport to improve their EHC plan processes and the quality of plans.
The department wants to ensure that EHC needs assessments, where required, are conducted as quickly as possible, so that children and young people can access the support they need. In March 2023, the government set out its plans to reform and improve the SEND system through its SEND and alternative provision (AP) Improvement Plan. The plan commits to establishing a single national system that delivers for every child and young person with SEND so that they enjoy their childhood, achieve good outcomes and are well prepared for adulthood and employment.
In the short term, the department is working hard to improve the current EHC plan system through a range of measures to improve the SEND system. The department is investing heavily in the SEND system. Examples of the department’s investments include: improving specialist capacity by investing over £21 million to train 400 more educational psychologists from 2024, investing £2.6 billion between 2022 and 2025 to fund new special and AP places and improve existing provision (including announcing 41 new special free schools and 38 special free schools that are currently in the pipeline), investing £30 million to develop innovative approaches for short breaks for children, young people and their families over three years and investing over £7 million to fund extension of the Alternative Provision Specialist Taskforce pilot programme, (delivering now in 22 local authorities) to run until 2025.
The department is also putting in place measures to improve the SEND system in the longer term, so that where an EHC plan is needed they can be issued as quickly as possible, so that children and young people can access the support they need.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an estimate of the number of international students studying in the UK from India in the last 12 months.
Answered by Robert Halfon
Data on the number of international students by country of domicile can be found on Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) website here: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/students/where-from. HESA data is not available for the last 12 months.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to increase the availability of appointments for education, health and care plan assessments.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Local authorities have a statutory responsibility to assess whether children and young people have Special Educational Needs which require an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan. EHC plans must be issued within twenty weeks of the needs assessment commencing so that children and young people can access the support they need. In 2022, there were 114,482 requests for an EHC needs assessment and 72,695 assessments took place. The number of assessments has been increasing year on year since EHC plans were introduced. As of January 2023, 517,049 children and young people have EHC plans.
Where local authorities are failing to deliver consistent outcomes for children and young people with Special Educational Need and Disabilities (SEND), the department works with them using a range of improvement programmes and SEND specialist advisors to address weaknesses. Stockport is one of a number of local areas where the department is monitoring their EHC plan performance. The department is working with Stockport to improve their EHC plan quality as one of the key actions in the Local Area Partnerships ‘Accelerated Progress Plan’ following their most recent Ofsted Care Quality Commission inspection.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
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 special educational needs training given to teachers and staff at comprehensive schools in Greater Manchester.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department does not perform teacher performance evaluation at the local level. The Teachers’ Standards sets out the minimum level of practice expected of teachers who are awarded qualified teacher status (QTS). To be awarded QTS at the end of Initial Teacher Training (ITT), trainees must demonstrate that they have met all the Teachers’ Standards at the appropriate level. The standards are also used to assess the performance of all teachers with QTS under the School Teachers’ Appraisal Regulations (2012). Therefore, most teachers need to adhere to the standards throughout their careers.
All teachers are teachers of pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), and the department is committed to ensuring that all pupils can reach their potential and receive excellent support from their teachers. The Teachers’ Standards set clear expectations that teachers must understand the needs of all pupils, including those with SEND. Consideration of SEND underpins both the ITT Core Content Framework and Early Career Framework (ECF), which were both produced with the support of sector experts. ITT courses and ECF-based programmes are designed so that new teachers can demonstrate that they meet the Teachers’ Standards at the appropriate level. This includes the requirement in Standard 5, that all teachers must have a clear understanding of the needs of all pupils.
To pass statutory teacher induction, early career teachers must demonstrate that they meet the Teachers' Standards through a formal assessment, signed off by their headteacher and independently checked by their appropriate body. Ofsted is responsible for inspecting ITT partnerships and ECF lead providers in line with published inspection frameworks.
Headteachers use their professional judgement to identify any further training, including specific specialisms, for individual staff that is relevant to them, the school, and its pupils. To further support the needs of pupils with SEND, particularly in mainstream settings where most of these learners are educated, the department has funded the Universal Services programme. The Universal Services programme, backed by almost £12 million in funding, will help the school and further education (FE) workforce to identify and meet the needs of children and young people with SEND earlier and more effectively.
National Standards will improve mainstream education through setting standards for early and accurate identification of needs, and timely access to support to meet those needs. The standards will include clarifying the types of support that should be ordinarily available in mainstream settings and who is responsible for securing the support. This will help families, practitioners and providers understand what support every child or young person should be receiving from early years through to FE, no matter where they live or what their needs are.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help ensure local authorities have sufficient resources to deliver specialist education services for (a) children and (b) young people with visual impairment.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Specialist education services and provision for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), including those with visual impairment, is funded from local authorities’ high needs budgets. High needs funding will increase to over £10.5 billion in 2024/25 which is an increase of over 60% from the 2019/20 allocations.
In December 2023 the department announced local authorities’ allocations of high needs funding through their 2024/25 dedicated schools grant. Stockport Council is due to receive an allocation of over £48 million, which is a cumulative increase of 28% per head through the national funding formula over the three years from 2021/22. This funding will help with the costs of delivering specialist education services for children and young people with visual impairment.
To support pupils with visual impairments in school, the department is reforming the system to support all children with SEND, which includes improved support in mainstream schools and securing the supply of specialist teachers trained in sensory impairment.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she is taking steps to provide support for students with diabetes.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Pupils at school with medical conditions should be properly supported so that they have full access to education. In 2014, the government introduced a new duty on schools to support pupils with all medical conditions and has published statutory guidance intended to help governing bodies meet their legal responsibilities. This guidance sets out the arrangements they will be expected to make, based on good practice. Schools should ensure they are aware of any pupils with medical conditions and should have policies and processes in place to ensure these can be well managed.
The government encourages all schools to promote healthy eating amongst pupils and provide healthy, tasty and nutritious food and drink. Compliance with the School Food Standards, which restricts foods that are high in fat, salt and sugar, is mandatory. It ensures that pupils always have healthy food and drink options available to them while in school, and that children get the energy and nutrition they need across the school day.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of ventilation in schools on (a) illness and (b) attendance levels.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The department recognises that letting fresh air into indoor spaces and ensuring they are well ventilated can help remove air that contains virus particles and is important in reducing the spread of airborne illnesses, including flu, Strep A and COVID-19.
A departmental priority is to reduce overall school absence and maximise the number of children who regularly attend school. One way to help achieve this is through maintaining good ventilation which creates a healthy indoor environment for staff and students.
Between September 2021 and April 2023, the department has delivered over 700,000 CO2 monitors to over 45,000 state-funded settings, including early years, further education, childminders operating in groups of four or more, and children’s homes that offer places to six or more. This means that all eligible settings now have an assigned monitor for every teaching and childcare space. The monitors enable staff to identify areas where ventilation needs to be improved and provide reassurance that existing ventilation measures are working, helping balance the need for good ventilation with keeping classrooms warm.
Settings that reported high CO2 readings using their monitors were able to apply for department funded air cleaning units, where they met the criteria, to help reduce airborne transmission of illness further. The department has subsequently provided over 9,000 ACUs to over 1,300 settings to help them manage their indoor air quality while longer term remedial work is undertaken to address the underlying ventilation issue.
The department has published guidance with linked resources to help settings understand the need for good ventilation, and how to make the most out of their devices. This is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/using-co-monitors-and-air-cleaning-units-in-education-and-care-settings.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department plans to provide additional funding to Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council for education services.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The Central School Services Block (CSSB) funds Local Authorities to carry out central education services on behalf of all pupils in maintained schools and academies. The CSSB funding comprises two distinct parts: funding for ongoing responsibilities and funding for historic commitments. In the 2023/24 financial year, Stockport received a total of £2,019,683 in CSSB funding through the Dedicated Schools Grant and its provisional CSSB allocation for 2024/25 through the National Funding Formula is £1,971,361. Final allocations for 2024/25 will be published as usual in December within the Dedicated Schools Grant.