Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to improve local authority support for vulnerable children.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
We are providing local authorities with more money to support vulnerable children, with an additional £410 million invested this year across adults’ and children’s social care. Separately, we are investing £84 million over 5 years to drive improvements in children’s services across local authorities, especially through early intervention.
In 2018, the department introduced a new, tougher Ofsted inspection framework to drive improvement in children’s services. The department intervenes robustly in every local authority judged ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted, bringing in experts to assess which improvements will ensure better services. This might include removing service delivery from the council’s control by establishing a trust, giving children’s services a fresh start.
Since May 2010, 46 local authorities have been lifted out of intervention and have not returned, and the number of inadequate local authorities has reduced from 30 to 19 since July 2017. We aim to continue making these improvements at pace so that, by 2022, less than 10% of local authorities are rated ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted, halving failure rates within 5 years and providing consistently better services for thousands of children and families across the country.
To get ahead of failure, we are investing an additional £20 million in our regional improvement strategy, working collaboratively with the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, Local Government Association, Solace and the rest of the sector to identify local authorities that need additional support. Our Regional Improvement Alliances and high-performing ‘Partners in Practice’ local authorities support those at risk of failure, embedding a system of sector-led improvement with more than 70 local authorities receiving support to date.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what data his Department collects to monitor the effectiveness of money allocated from the public purse to early years early intervention strategies in (a) Kirklees and (b) Yorkshire and the Humber.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Public Health Outcomes Framework is a comprehensive source of data at local authority unitary, county and district level on the extent to which local strategies are successful and effective in improving outcomes for children in the early years. It is available at the following link: https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile/public-health-outcomes-framework.
The framework includes data on outcomes for children aged 5 from the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (EYFSP). Further information on the EYFSP is broken down by local authority and available to view at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/early-years-foundation-stage-profile-results-2017-to-2018. We do not publish this data at constituency or combined authority level.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when his Department plans to publish the results of the consultation on draft guidance for elective home education; and how many submissions were received for that consultation.
Answered by Anne Milton
The government response document resulted from the consultation on elective home education, which ended on 2 July 2018. This document along with the finalised guidance documents will be published soon.
The number of responses received to the consultation were as follows:
Type of response | Number of responses |
Online | 2987 |
274 | |
Hard Copy | 180 |
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to support the delivery of Education and Health Care Plans for children with special educational needs and disabilities.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
We have given £252 million to local authorities to support implementation of the new duties under the Children and Families Act (2014). We have also funded a consortium of partners, including the Council for Disabled Children, to work with health and social care services, including producing guidance on improving education, health and care (EHC) plans; and funded a special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) leadership programme and legal training for all local authorities and their health partners to ensure they are clear on their statutory responsibilities.
We have strengthened the National Health Service (NHS) Provider Contract for NHS Trusts to include a requirement to report on meeting the six-week deadline for health input into EHC plans; established a national network for Designated Medical Officers and Designated Clinical Officers, funded a local authority led regional network and developed resources to support joint self-assessment and peer review.
We monitor implementation on the ground, for example, looking at the time it takes for local authorities to issue EHC plans. The Ofsted/Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspections of SEND services we introduced in 2016 have also shone a light on strengths and weaknesses in the delivery of EHC plans and have proved a catalyst for local change. Where significant concerns have been identified, written statements of action (WSOA), setting out the actions the local area will take to improve services, are supporting local areas to improve their services. Ofsted and the CQC will re-visit each area with a WSOA to assess the progress they are making; and where sufficient progress is not being made, we will take appropriate action.
64.9% of new EHC plans (excluding exception cases) were issued within 20 weeks in 2017, up from 58.6% in 2016.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of the criteria used to determine the level of need in the allocation of high needs funding.
Answered by Nick Gibb
High needs funding allocations for individual pupils is determined by local authorities in consultation with their schools and families. In most cases, high needs funding will be allocated following a statutory education, health and care needs assessment.
Following extensive consultation, the high needs national funding formula allocates funding to local authorities through a set of proxy factors. Further information on these factors can be found in the consultation document at: https://consult.education.gov.uk/funding-policy-unit/high-needs-funding-reform-2/.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 22 October 2018 to Question 180286 on Children: Hearing Impairments, what extensive support his Department has provided to schools to deliver the best value possible with available resources.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The department has launched a Supporting School Resource Management strategy which provides schools with practical advice on savings that can be made on the £10 billion non-staffing spend spent across England last year. This outlines the extensive support we are providing for schools and includes support and guidance to schools and academies to improve how they buy goods and services. For example:
- The financial benchmarking service, which allows schools to compare their performance and use of resources with other, similar schools, and also comparisons between academy trusts.
- Recommended deals that are helping schools to save money on the things they buy regularly, such as printers and photocopiers.
- A new deal to support schools with getting value for money when hiring supply teachers and other agency workers.
- Regional Schools Buying Hubs pilots in the North West and South West, providing hands-on support and advice to schools on complex procurement.
- A free teacher vacancy listing website to support recruitment needs and drive down recruitment costs is currently in pilot phase.
- Encouraging schools to integrate their curriculum and financial planning to inform decision making on the deployment of teaching staff.
- School Resource Management Advisers (SRMAs). These sector experts work with schools and trusts to provide tailored advice on how to make best use of their revenue and capital resources to deliver educational outcomes. The SRMA pilot started at the end of January 2018 and completed some 70 deployments by the end of the 2017/18 academic year. SRMAs will be deployed in larger scale in the 2018/19 academic year.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 22 October 2018 to Question 180286 on Children: Hearing Impairments, if he will publish the findings from his Department’s monitoring of the impact of the national funding formula on high needs.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The department published Section 251 budget data for 2018-19, detailing the planned spend by local authorities on high needs, in September 2018. This can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/section-251-2018-to-2019#section-251-budget-data.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of funding available to local authorities for specialist education services for deaf children.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
We want children with special educational needs and disabilities to be able to reach their full potential.
Nationally, high needs funding has risen by £1 billion since 2013-14, to just under £6 billion in 2018-19. Allocations for individual local authorities can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dedicated-schools-grant-dsg-2018-to-2019.
However, we recognise that costs have increased which is why we are providing extensive support to schools to deliver the best value possible with available resources. This includes a high needs benchmarking tool to allow local authorities to compare their spending in this area.
We are monitoring the impact of our national funding formula on high needs and are keeping the overall level of funding under review.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the report, Keep on Caring published by the Government in July 2016, when his Department plans to undertake a review the implementation of the policy of staying put.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The department keeps the Staying Put policy under constant review by monitoring data from local authorities showing take-up amongst young people, engagement with the sector and looking at information from Ofsted inspections of local authorities. Staying Put was also considered as part of the independent fostering review undertaken by Sir Martin Narey and Mark Owers, published in February 2018.
Staying Put has been welcomed by care leavers and the sector. It is recognised by them as a positive initiative and has helped thousands of care leavers to transition more smoothly from care to independence, providing continuity of relationships and care arrangements. The department will continue to gather information from the national rollout of Staying Put and in light of this, refine policy as required.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he is providing guidance to head teachers and school leaders on salary levels for the forthcoming academic year in the absence of the publication of the 2018 School Teachers' Review Body report; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) has recently submitted its 28th Report to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, which makes recommendations on the 2018 pay award. The Government will now consider carefully the report from the STRB and its recommendations. The Department will publish the report and our response as soon as possible.