Asked by: Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat - North Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many working days were lost due to mental illness in her Department in each of the last three years.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The information requested is set out in the table below.
Year | Working days lost due to mental health absence |
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2013/14 | 5331 |
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2014/15 | 6073 |
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2015/16 | 4712 |
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Sickness absence relating to mental health includes those recorded as anxiety and depression, mental health issues, and stress.
Asked by: Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat - North Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will consider the introduction of a programme to reduce or write off student loans for top graduates entering teaching or social work in areas (a) of high social need and (b) struggling to recruit to such professions.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Recruiting sufficient, high-quality teachers is central to the Government’s ambition to deliver educational excellence everywhere. High-quality teachers are the single most important factor determining how well pupils achieve in schools. That is why we have already committed to spend over £1.3 billion on teacher recruitment up to 2020. This includes continuing to provide generous tax-free teacher training bursaries to graduates, which are worth up to £30,000 for academic year 2016/17.
More trainee teachers started training in 2015/16 than in 2014/15, and a record proportion of new trainees held a first class degree. For courses beginning in 2016/17, so far around 26,000 people have secured a teacher training place, and we have already recruited in excess of targets in primary and several secondary subjects.
We review the financial incentives for teacher training every year, and we will continue to test new approaches to recruiting teachers, such as the STEM teacher supply package announced in March 2015.
Recruiting and retaining high quality social workers is essential to ensure we deliver high quality services to vulnerable children and families. As already announced, the Government will consult on the future funding of social work education in order to ensure that there will be an adequate supply of social workers with the right skills and training. This is part of a wider, ongoing programme which has seen investment of over £700m since 2010 in social worker training and improvement programmes, including support for a range of routes to expand entry into the profession such as Frontline, a scheme specifically aimed at bringing top graduates into social work, and Step Up.
Asked by: Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat - North Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what progress her Department has made in conducting an audit of educational provision within children and adolescent mental health service tier 4 settings.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The Department for Education has been working with the National Health Service to determine the scope and nature of the audit of educational provision within Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) tier 4 settings, as a result of the Health Select Committee report on CAMHS in 2014. We will release the outcomes of this audit in due course.