Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the threshold level for eligibility for (a) 30 hours of free childcare and (b) tax-free childcare on working parents who earn between £100,000 and £125,000.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government is committed to delivering the expansion of the 30 hours free childcare offer so that from September 2025 eligible working parents in England will be able to access 30 hours of free childcare per week, over 38 weeks of the year, from the term after their child turns 9 months old to when they start school. Accessible and high-quality early education and childcare is a crucial part of giving every child the best start in life, boosting children’s life chances and giving parents work choices.
To be eligible for the working parent entitlement, parents will each need to earn the equivalent of 16 hours a week at National Minimum Wage (£9,518 per year) and less than £100,000 adjusted net income per year. This offer aims to support parents to return to work or to work more hours, if they wish. The income eligibility criteria are the same for Tax-Free Childcare.
The £100,000 level was chosen to correspond with Income Tax thresholds and be easily understandable for parents, and only a very small proportion of parents (3.8% of parents of 3 and 4-year-olds in 2023/24) earn over the £100,000 adjusted net income maximum threshold. There are no current plans to change the income threshold for the working parent entitlement or Tax-Free Childcare.
The government is committed to managing public finances in a responsible way by targeting support with childcare towards those who need it the most in order to work. These are the parents for whom childcare support makes a bigger difference to their ability to work, given that childcare costs make up a bigger proportion of their earnings.
However, the universal 15 hours of free childcare offer remains in place for all parents of 3 and 4-year-olds, regardless of parental circumstances, including those who earn over £100,000.
Parents can find out about the government-funded support they are eligible for via the Childcare Choices website: https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has had discussions with Cabinet colleagues on steps to increase democratic education.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
For secondary schools, democracy is currently taught through the national curriculum for citizenship at key stages 3 and 4, which covers parliamentary democracy, the key elements of the constitution of the United Kingdom, the power of government and how citizens and Parliament hold it to account. Primary schools can choose to teach citizenship, using non-statutory programmes of study at key stages 1 and 2.
Support for curriculum delivery is available through optional, free and adaptable resources from Oak National Academy (Oak). Oak launched its new curriculum sequences for secondary citizenship earlier this academic year, with the full package of curriculum resources expected to be available by autumn 2025. Oak resources are available here: https://www.thenational.academy/.
The UK Parliament runs educational tours for pupils, youth and community groups to see how Parliament works in action and produces free resources.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport funds the UK Youth Parliament (UKYP) to support young people to engage in the democratic process. Every two years, the UKYP runs ‘Make Your Mark,’ a youth vote open to all 11 to 18 year-olds in the UK, for them to be able to vote on what are the most important issues for young people.
The government has established an independent Curriculum and Assessment Review, conducted by a group of education leaders and chaired by Professor Becky Francis CBE. The terms of reference were published last July and can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/curriculum-and-assessment-review.
The review group will publish an interim report in early spring setting out its interim findings and confirm key areas for further work. Its final report, with recommendations, will be published this autumn. The department will take decisions on what changes to make in light of these recommendations.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many ministerial red boxes belonging to her Department have been reported (a) lost and (b) stolen in each of the last three years.
Answered by Damian Hinds
There is no record of any ministerial red boxes from the department having been either reported missing or stolen in the last three years.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether any refurbishments have been made to ministerial offices in her Department in each of the last two years.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The department is undertaking a maintenance project in its London office. The works were initiated in 2019, as part of much wider government programme to reduce the number of civil servants based in London and to shrink the physical footprint of office accommodation in Whitehall and reduce the burden on the taxpayer. This is primarily essential work to replace the end of life mechanical and electrical systems, bring the building up to a suitable standard, and enable the department to consolidate its occupation. This will enable the building to become a Government Property Agency hub and provide vacant space to be used by other governmental departments.
As part of the consolidation, Ministers will be required to move to another floor. The work to enable this move is underway and due to complete in spring 2024.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many settlement payments her Department issued following claims of (a) bullying, (b) harassment and (c) discrimination in the (i) 2019-20, (ii) 2020-21, (iii) 2021-22 and (iv) 2022-23 financial years.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The table below shows the number of settlement payments the department has made following claims of bullying, harassment and/or discrimination for the last four financial years.
| 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23 |
Bullying | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Harassment | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Discrimination | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether there have been any power cuts on their Department's property in each of the last three years.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The department’s estate is managed on its behalf by the Government Property Agency (GPA). GPA records indicate that Cheylesmore House, Coventry experienced a power cut in 2022 and Sanctuary Buildings, London experienced power cuts in 2022 and 2023. In both cases, this resulted from a local power outage. There were no other recorded outages on other department estate properties.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support she provides to local authorities to help provide post-adoption support.
Answered by David Johnston
The department is committed to improving the support available to adopted children and their families to help them make the most of life’s opportunities.
Since 2015, the Adoption Support Fund (ASF) has provided funds to local authorities and Regional Adoption Agencies (RAAs) to support eligible adoptive and special guardianship order families. The ASF helps children and their families access assessments to support understanding of their needs and a range of therapeutic interventions related to their attachment and trauma. The department has provided over £345 million in ASF funding to local authorities to provide post-adoption support to over 46,000 children since 2015.
The department is providing funding worth £5 million between 2023 to 2025 to support RAAs to develop Centres of Excellence with the aim of providing better wraparound care for adoptive children and their families. Centres of Excellence include teams of health, education and adoption support services, providing joint packages of care for adopted children. The funding is being used to develop new projects in seven RAA areas and participating local authorities will benefit from shared approaches to assessment and support.
The department is also committed to ensuring that adopted children are supported to succeed in education. Previously looked after children attract Pupil Premium Plus at a rate of £2,530 per year and they have top priority in school admissions. All maintained schools and academies must appoint a designated teacher to act as the central point of contact for adoptive families about their child’s progress in school. In addition, local authorities must appoint a virtual school head to give schools and adoptive families expert advice on the education needs of adopted children, including how best Pupil Premium Plus funding can be used to support them.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Answer of 26 October 2023 to Question 203895 Teachers: Recruitment, what estimate her Department has made of the (a) number and (b) proportion of new teacher sign ups that is attributable to the Get Into Teaching advertising campaign.
Answered by Damian Hinds
Several methods are used to assess the Get Into Teaching campaign’s impact. They include regular brand tracking studies and other market research; econometric modelling to identify and quantify the factors affecting sign ups to the Get Into Teaching service; analysis of the flow of candidates between Get Into Teaching and the Find and Apply services; and tracking of site traffic to the Get Into Teaching website.
The teaching recruitment campaign tracks a number of behavioural and attitudinal metrics to give a rounded picture of campaign impact.
Key Performance Indicators for the teaching recruitment campaign are the consideration of teaching as a career amongst our target audience and the number of new, unique sign-ups to the Get Into Teaching service. The campaign also measures the proportion of sign-ups attributed to the advertising campaign, through econometric modelling. Recent econometric analysis shows that in July 2023, 42% of sign-ups to the Get Into Teaching website were attributable to paid advertising.
There are many factors affecting the number of teachers recruited in any given recruitment cycle, including levels of financial support, predicted demand for new teachers, the size of pool of new graduates and other economic factors.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to monitor unregistered schools.
Answered by Damian Hinds
Unregistered schools are settings that operate as an independent school without having registered with the department. It is a criminal offence under section 96 of the Education and Skills 2008 Act for a person to operate an unregistered independent school. Where the department finds evidence that a school is operating unlawfully, the department will seek to take action by working with Ofsted, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service as necessary.
Since those responsible for conducting unregistered schools are committing an offence, they do not generally inform the department about the school’s operation, it is therefore not possible to monitor such settings.
However, the department and Ofsted continue to investigate any setting where there is evidence to suggest that an unregistered independent school is operating. Ofsted has powers under section 97 of the Education and Skills Act 2008 that allows for unannounced inspections of settings believed to be operating in breach of the registration requirement.
Ofsted publishes statistics on the number and outcomes of investigations carried out into unregistered schools. Statistics published for the period 1 January 2016 to 31 August 2023, show that 767 inspections of suspected unregistered independent schools took place. Joint work between the department and Ofsted has led to 180 of these settings changing their provision to no longer operate unlawfully, in breach of the 2008 Act. In that time six successful prosecutions have been brought against those responsible for conducting illegal settings.
More information and a link to the Education and Skills Act 2008 can be found here: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2008/25/contents.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to tackle bullying in schools.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The government has sent a clear message to schools that bullying, for whatever reason, is unacceptable. Bullying can have a devastating effect on individuals, harm their education and have serious and lasting consequences for their mental health.
All schools are legally required to have a behaviour policy with measures to prevent all forms of bullying. Schools have the freedom to develop their own anti-bullying strategies that are appropriate to their environment and are held to account by Ofsted.
The department is providing over £3 million of funding, between 10 August 2021 and 31 March 2024, to five anti-bullying organisations to support schools to tackle bullying. This includes projects targeting bullying of particular groups, such as those who are victims of hate-related bullying and homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying.
In November 2018, the department published ‘Educate Against Hate’, a self-review and signposting tool to support schools to develop a whole-school approach which promotes respect and discipline. This can combat bullying, harassment and prejudice of any kind, including sexual bullying and sexual harassment. It will help schools to identify the various elements that make up a whole school approach, consider gaps in their current practice, and get further support. ‘Educate Against Hate’ is available at: https://www.educateagainsthate.com/school-leaders/?filter=guidance-and-training-school-leaders.
The department is also making sure that all children in England will learn about respectful relationships, in person and online, as part of new mandatory relationships, sex and health education (RSHE). These subjects are designed to give pupils the knowledge they need to lead happy, safe and healthy lives, as well as to foster respect for other people and for difference. RSHE also includes teaching about online safety and harms.