Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to provide financial assistance mirroring arrangements for schools via the Music and Dance Scheme to cover the cost of changes to (a) employer National Insurance contributions and (b) the National Minimum Wage.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The Music and Dance Scheme grant funding of both private schools and Centres for Advanced Training relates to financing places via means-tested bursaries only and is not intended as direct funding to meet wider employment costs.
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Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to (a) promote and (b) monitor the use of individual healthcare plans in schools to support young people living with arthritis.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
Section 100 of the Children and Families Act 2014 places a duty on maintained schools, academies and pupil referral units to make arrangements for supporting pupils with medical conditions. Some children with medical conditions may be considered to be disabled under the definition set out in the Equality Act 2010. Where this is the case, governing bodies must comply with their duties under that Act.
Governing bodies should ensure that all schools develop a policy for supporting pupils with medical conditions that is reviewed regularly and is readily accessible to parents and school staff. They must ensure that the arrangements they put in place are sufficient to meet their statutory responsibilities and should ensure that policies, plans, procedures and systems are properly and effectively implemented.
The statutory guidance ‘Supporting pupils at school with medical conditions’ recommends the use of individual healthcare plans as good practice. They can help schools support pupils with medical conditions, providing clarity about what needs to be done, when and by whom. The school, healthcare professionals and parents should agree, based on evidence, when a healthcare plan would be appropriate. The guidance can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5ce6a72e40f0b620a103bd53/supporting-pupils-at-school-with-medical-conditions.pdf.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to support children living with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis in schools.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
Section 100 of the Children and Families Act 2014 places a duty on maintained schools, academies and pupil referral units to make arrangements for supporting pupils with medical conditions. Some children with medical conditions may be considered to be disabled under the definition set out in the Equality Act 2010. Where this is the case, governing bodies must comply with their duties under that Act.
Governing bodies should ensure that all schools develop a policy for supporting pupils with medical conditions that is reviewed regularly and is readily accessible to parents and school staff. They must ensure that the arrangements they put in place are sufficient to meet their statutory responsibilities and should ensure that policies, plans, procedures and systems are properly and effectively implemented.
The statutory guidance ‘Supporting pupils at school with medical conditions’ recommends the use of individual healthcare plans as good practice. They can help schools support pupils with medical conditions, providing clarity about what needs to be done, when and by whom. The school, healthcare professionals and parents should agree, based on evidence, when a healthcare plan would be appropriate. The guidance can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5ce6a72e40f0b620a103bd53/supporting-pupils-at-school-with-medical-conditions.pdf.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support she plans to provide to the Office for Students to (a) allow more providers to complete the registration process for the Lifelong Learning Entitlement and (b) support additional applications from small specialist providers who receive educational oversight from Ofsted for eligible Level 5 and 6 provision.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government is committed to delivering the Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE) as set out in the Autumn Budget statement in October 2024. From the LLE’s launch in January 2027, the Office for Students (OfS) will regulate all providers offering LLE-funded provision.
The OfS has made clear that it expects to restart work on registrations, degree awarding powers and university titles in August 2025, although the changes will remain under review until then. The department understands the OfS will keep providers updated throughout this period about its plans, including confirming application arrangements from August onwards. The government supports the reasons for the temporary pause so that the OfS can refocus its efforts on provider financial sustainability. As the independent regulator, it is for the OfS to process registrations in the manner it deems most appropriate.
The government will continue to engage closely with the OfS and providers to support timely transition arrangements for the launch of the LLE. The government, together with the OfS, will provide further information on the regulation of providers under the LLE in spring 2025.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether providers receiving educational oversight from Ofsted for Level 5 and 6 provision will have a third category route to registration with the Office for Students during the implementation of the Lifelong Learning Entitlement.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government is committed to delivering the Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE) as set out in the Autumn Budget statement in October 2024. From the LLE’s launch in January 2027, the Office for Students (OfS) will regulate all providers offering LLE-funded provision.
The OfS has made clear that it expects to restart work on registrations, degree awarding powers and university titles in August 2025, although the changes will remain under review until then. The department understands the OfS will keep providers updated throughout this period about its plans, including confirming application arrangements from August onwards. The government supports the reasons for the temporary pause so that the OfS can refocus its efforts on provider financial sustainability. As the independent regulator, it is for the OfS to process registrations in the manner it deems most appropriate.
The government will continue to engage closely with the OfS and providers to support timely transition arrangements for the launch of the LLE. The government, together with the OfS, will provide further information on the regulation of providers under the LLE in spring 2025.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the impact of period poverty on educational attainment in England.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
We do not hold data on the impact of period poverty on educational attainment in England.
The Period Products Scheme removes periods as a barrier to accessing education and addresses pupils being unable to afford period products. Since its launch in January 2020, 99% of secondary schools and 87% of post-16 organisations in England have placed orders through the scheme.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of expanding the Holiday Activities and Food programme to all (a) families in receipt of Universal Credit and (b) children and young people living in areas of high multiple deprivation.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The holiday activities and food programme (HAF) supports disadvantaged children and their families during the Easter, summer and Christmas holidays with enriching activities, providing them with healthy food, helping them to learn new things, improving socialisation and benefiting their health and wellbeing during school holidays.
The HAF programme guidance sets out that: “While the majority of funding that local authorities receive should be used for holiday club places for children in receipt of free school meals (FSM), local authorities have discretion to use up to 15% of their funding to provide free or subsidised holiday club places for children who are not in receipt of benefits-related FSM, but who the local authority believe could benefit from HAF provision”.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to expand free school meal eligibility as part of the work of the child poverty strategy.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government is committed to delivering an ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty by tackling the root causes and giving every child the best start in life. To support this, a new Ministerial taskforce has been set up to develop a Child Poverty Strategy. The taskforce will consider a range of policies, assessing what will have the greatest impact in driving down rates of child poverty. As with all policies, the government keeps the approach to free school meals under review.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of school building conditions.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The government has compiled one of the largest and most comprehensive surveys of school building condition in Europe. The Condition Data Collection (CDC) programme is the first of its kind to help us understand the condition of the school estate, and target funding to where it is most needed. This programme ran from 2017 to 2019 and visited over 22,000 schools. The key findings from the first CDC programme is available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/989912/Condition_of_School_Buildings_Survey_CDC1_-_key_findings_report.pdf.
A follow up programme, known as Condition Data Collection 2, is underway and has already visited over half of the government funded school and college estate in England. The programme is due to be completed by 2026.
It is the responsibility of those who run schools – such as academy trusts and local authorities – who work with their schools day to day to manage maintenance and to alert the department if there is a serious concern with a building that cannot be managed independently. The department supports them by providing capital funding, delivering major rebuilding programmes and offering guidance and support.
The department has allocated over £17 billion since 2015 for improving the condition of schools, including £1.8 billion announced for 2024/25. In addition, the School Rebuilding Programme is transforming buildings at over 500 schools across England.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 20 March 2023 to Question 165185 on Free School Meals, what the complex data, systems, financial and legal implications are of a government-led rollout of automatic enrolment for all eligible children.
Answered by Damian Hinds
As previously communicated, the department has looked at auto-enrolment and considers there to be merit in local authorities exploring initiatives to maximise take up and to better understand the barriers that prevent such take up, whilst also ensuring adherence to legal and data protection constraints, which still remain an important consideration. These include constraints around data-sharing, as well as the need for families to make a claim for free school meals to be eligible under the current process.
The department continues to engage with key stakeholders in this area, noting the methods currently being trialled across a number of local authorities to increase and maximise take up.