Asked by: Stephen Phillips (Conservative - Sleaford and North Hykeham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, on how many occasions in each of the last two calendar years her Department has been notified by outside consultants or other third parties of breaches by employees or subcontractors of those consultants of document retention or security policies relating to confidential or secure materials.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department was notified by a third party of a breach of document retention or security policy relating to confidential or secure materials on two occasions during 2014.
No other notifications were received during the period.
Asked by: Stephen Phillips (Conservative - Sleaford and North Hykeham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to assist schools in Lincolnshire to resolve recent issues relating to the provision of financial services by SERCO on behalf of Lincolnshire County Council.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
We've been in correspondence on this issue and theHon. Memberis aware that the management of financial services to schools is the devolved responsibility of the local authority.
The local authority has confirmed they are aware of the problem. They have put in place an emergency project board, and are processing payments manually where necessary. Schools concerned about urgent payments should contact the local authority who will intervene and make an emergency payment.
Asked by: Stephen Phillips (Conservative - Sleaford and North Hykeham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many design and technology departments in (a) academies and (b) local authority maintained schools have closed in the last five years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department for Education does not collect information on the closure of departments within schools.
Asked by: Stephen Phillips (Conservative - Sleaford and North Hykeham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to encourage the teaching of design and technology in (a) academies and (b) local authority maintained schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Design and technology is compulsory in the national curriculum at key stages 1 to 3. The new national curriculum, which came into force from September 2014, is more challenging, with a focus on the process of design and strengthened technical knowledge. GCSEs and A levels in design and technology are being developed, for first teaching from 2017, to be more rigorous and build on the new curriculum. Academies are not required to deliver the national curriculum, however, they must offer a broad and balanced curriculum and publish their curriculum provision and content online.
Asked by: Stephen Phillips (Conservative - Sleaford and North Hykeham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much her Department provides to Lincolnshire County Council to fund an hour's care for each child in pre-school nursery care.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The Department for Education funds local authorities through the Dedicated Schools Grant for delivering the early years entitlement. In consultation with their Schools Forum, local authorities are then responsible for deciding how best to distribute this funding across their locality and they set their own local rates of funding for early years providers. The DSG allocations for three- and four-year-olds for each local authority are available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dedicated-schools-grant-dsg-2015-to-2016
The allocations table includes the Early Years Block Unit of Funding that local authorities receive from the DfE for each child. Local authorities are then responsible for funding early years providers to secure the Government-funded hours.
The Department collects funding information from all local authorities through section 251 financial returns, including information on funding for early years. To aid transparency, the early years data is published in the form of a benchmarking tool, on the rates that each local authority pays to its providers. The funding benchmarking tool is published here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-benchmarking-tool