Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many of the schools chosen to take part in the Breakfast clubs early adopters pilot already have a breakfast club; and how many already have a free breakfast club.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
I refer the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston to the answer of 17 April 2025 to Question 34817.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what methodology her Department used to assess bid applications for the school-based nursery capital grant.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Bid applications for the school-based nursery capital grant were assessed on four key criteria: project overview and value for money, local need for childcare, approach to early years education and management of provision.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much was spent in (a) cash and (b) real terms on Ofsted in each year since 1995.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
This is a matter for His Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Sir Martyn Oliver. I have asked him to write to the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston directly and a copy of his reply will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the Single Unique Identifier that the Government are piloting is the NHS number; what the (a) locations, (b) timing and (c) size of the pilot is; and how families have been informed.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is currently exploring the suitability of using the NHS number as a single unique identifier with Wigan local authority. This process will take several months. This first phase of work will explore whether success rates of linking children’s records can be improved within a local authority by using the NHS number provided by the NHS Personal Demographic Service. This work will inform future tests and pilots.
The department anticipates several rounds of piloting the different aspects of implementation to establish where it can have the right impact, and to understand the system costs and business process changes associated with its usage.
We will be working with NHS England and local authorities as part of the piloting process, to ensure that the data processed as part of the pilot is secure and meets legal requirements around the data subject's rights to be informed about how their information is processed. One way children and families are informed about how their personal information is used, is via privacy notices. Wigan’s privacy notices that are relevant in this context can be accessed at: https://www.wigan.gov.uk/Council/DataProtection-FOI-Stats/Privacy-notices/Privacy-Notices-for-all-services.aspx.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, which higher education institutions have been made subject by the Office for Students to (a) enhanced monitoring, (b) investigation, (c) a quality assessment report and (d) other quality related interventions; and when these interventions took place.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Office for Students (OfS) is the non-departmental public body responsible for higher education in England. It is independent of government.
In 2022/23, the OfS opened investigations into the quality of business and management courses at eight providers and of computing courses at three providers. It also opened investigations into grade inflation concerns at three providers and opened a further 12 investigations into potential non-compliance with condition B3, which sets minimum thresholds for student outcomes. Quality assessments are conducted as part of the quality investigations.
The OfS began publishing the subject-based investigation case reports in September 2023. Details of these, including decisions about any regulatory action, can be found here: https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/about/how-we-are-run/key-performance-measures/kpm-11-efficient-regulation/.
The OfS also publishes information about enhanced monitoring of providers. The OfS does not tell the department which providers are subject to enhanced monitoring, but where that enhanced monitoring follows an investigation, it is included in the case reports. The published case reports show that the OfS has decided to conduct enhanced monitoring of the University of Bolton (the OfS has since approved a change of name for the University of Bolton to the University of Greater Manchester) and the University of Bedfordshire, until such a point at which it judges the risk of non-compliance with its quality conditions to have been acceptably minimised.
The OfS began publishing the B3 investigation case reports in July 2023. Details of these can be found here: https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/for-providers/quality-and-standards/how-we-regulate-student-outcomes/assessment-reports/.
The case reports for the investigations into grade inflation concerns have not yet been published.
The OfS does not share details about open ongoing investigations with the department.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much funding was allocated to Ofsted in (a) cash and (b) real terms in each year since 1995.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
This is a matter for His Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Sir Martyn Oliver. I have asked him to write to the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston directly and a copy of his reply will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the average proportion of students was obtaining the equivalent of (a) Grade 5 or better and (b) Grade 4 or better in GCSE (i) English and (ii) Maths in each Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index decile in each year since 2010.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The information is not readily available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
However, the department publishes the percentage of pupils achieving grades 4/5 or above in English and mathematics GCSEs by Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI) deciles.
Data back to 2014/15 is published in the annual key stage 4/GCSE and equivalent statistical releases, which are available at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-gcses-key-stage-4. To find data by IDACI, see 'pupil residency and school location tables'.
Reformed GCSEs using the 9-1 grading scale were first introduced in 2016/17 with most GCSEs exams using the scale by 2018/19.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will list the (a) name and (b) URN of all currently open state schools alongside the (i) URN, (ii) Establishment number and (iii) name of the predecessor institutions for each.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
Information on all open and closed establishments in England is published on the Get Information about Schools (GIAS) service, which can be accessed here: https://get-information-schools.service.gov.uk/. Files available to download include information for all establishments (including name, URN and type of school) as well as a file with links to any predecessor or successor establishment. The files can be found here: https://get-information-schools.service.gov.uk/Downloads.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will list all (a) statutory and (b) non-statutory guidance issued to schools and colleges since 4 July 2024, along with the dates on which the guidance was issued.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The information requested can be found in the attached spreadsheet.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the predicted cost of children looked after is in 2024-25; and what proportion of this is allocated to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
In 2023/24, local authority gross expenditure on children's and young people's services was £14.8 billion. Over half of that expenditure was on services for children looked after, which is a total of £8.1 billion (54.9%).
Expenditure under the last administration on asylum seeker services for children, within local authority children’s services, increased by 29.7% to £341.7 million in 2023/24. This accounted for 4.2% of the total spend on looked after children.
The asylum seeker services for children spending line is unlikely to capture all expenditure on unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC). This spending line will only capture expenditure related to UASC that has not been recorded in other spending lines. For example, if a UASC is fostered then the associated expenditure will be captured in the ‘fostering services’ spend line by local authorities. These other lines are not disaggregated in the data collection so the department is unable to determine what proportion of fostering spend is spent on UASC.
The relevant data can be accessed here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/la-and-school-expenditure and data guidance and a breakdown of spending categories is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/section-251-2023-to-2024/section-251-financial-data-collection-2023-to-2024-guidance-for-local-authorities-compiling-their-outturn-statement.
In 2024/25, local authorities have planned expenditure on children looked after in gross terms to be £7.8 billion, of which £268.4 million is planned to be spent on asylum seeker services for children. The relevant data can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/planned-la-and-school-expenditure.
Local authorities typically underbudget, so budgets are generally a poor indicator of actual spend, but they are currently the only published data available for 2024/25. For example, local authorities spent £1.5 billion, 23%, more than budgeted for in 2023/24 on looked after children. Gross planned spend on looked after children for 2023/24 was £6.6 billion and the actual spend on looked after children in 2023/24 was £8.1 billion. The relevant data can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/planned-la-and-school-expenditure/2023-24#dataBlock-b3207b9e-46a0-4a1e-8e8a-7bfa46e2241b-tables and here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/la-and-school-expenditure#explore-data-and-files.