Asked by: Tom Pursglove (Conservative - Corby)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the implications of the new National Funding Formula for areas experiencing rapid housing growth.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Through the national funding formula, local authorities will receive growth funding to help them to respond to significant increases in pupil numbers. In 2018-19, we will allocate this funding based on local authority growth spending in 2017-18. This represents an improvement on the current system, which fails to recognise growing areas.
Asked by: Tom Pursglove (Conservative - Corby)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to increase opportunities for young people to access skills and vocational education.
Answered by Justine Greening
It is essential that everyone, irrespective of background and upbringing, has the opportunity to get the skills and training they need to get on in life. Tech levels and certificates in schools, Traineeships, Apprenticeships, National Colleges, Institutes of Technology and proposed technical education reforms set out in the Skills Plan, present real opportunities for people of all ages to acquire the high quality skills and vocational or technical education that employers demand. Opportunity Areas will be at the forefront of my Department’s drive to increase opportunities for young people to develop the skills they need to succeed.
Asked by: Tom Pursglove (Conservative - Corby)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 25 May 2016 to Question 37198, how many of the leaflets entitled Why the Government believes that voting to remain in the European Union is the best decision for the UK have been returned to her Department; and what the postage cost to the Government has been of such returns.
Answered by Nick Gibb
I refer the Hon Member to the Prime Minister's response of 25th May 2016. This information is not collated centrally by the Department.
Asked by: Tom Pursglove (Conservative - Corby)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much funding was allocated to schools for supporting children with learning difficulties in (a) Corby constituency and (b) East Northamptonshire in each of the last three years.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
Funding for children and young people with special educational needs (SEN) is allocated to local authorities through the dedicated schools grant, which includes both funding to be delegated to mainstream schools, and funding for the additional costs associated with educating children and young people with high needs.
Schools are funded through a formula set by their local authority, and local authorities are required to delegate funds to a level that enables schools to meet the additional cost of pupils with SEN up to £6,000 per annum. It is for individual schools to decide how they allocate their overall budget to ensure they meet the specific needs of children with learning difficulties.
For those pupils whose additional support costs more than £6,000 the local authority pays top-up funding to the schools from their high needs budget. Top-up funding rates are for local authorities to agree with their schools.
Northamptonshire County Council’s high needs allocation, within the dedicated schools grant, in each of the last three years was as follows:
2013-14 – £64.37 million
2014-15 – £65.74 million
2015-16 – £66.32 million.
We do not hold information on the total funding allocated by Northamptonshire County Council to schools in Corby and East Northamptonshire.
Asked by: Tom Pursglove (Conservative - Corby)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she plans to take to (a) assist and (b) encourage schools to make sport facilities available to the local community outside of school hours.
Answered by Edward Timpson
We encourage schools to make facilities available to the local community, including sports facilities, and many schools do.
Individual schools and their governing bodies or trusts are responsible for how they use their premises and facilities. We have published advice about the use of school premises for extended activities and community service in section 11.2 of the Governance Handbook. This can be found at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/governance-handbook.
Sport England has developed a resource for schools, titled ‘Use Our School’, which provides additional support for schools in opening their facilities to the community and keeping them open, and can be accessed at www.sportengland.org/facilities-planning/use-our-school/
The Government's new strategy for sport, 'Sporting Future, A New Strategy for an Active Nation' includes an action for Sport England to review take up of and engagement with its ‘Use Our School’ guidance to ensure that facilities owned by schools and colleges are used as effectively as possible.
Asked by: Tom Pursglove (Conservative - Corby)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to improve schools in rural areas.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government is committed to achieving educational excellence everywhere so that children in all areas of the country benefit from a high-quality education. We made substantial progress in the last Parliament, and a million more pupils are in good or outstanding schools compared to 2010. But there are still too many areas where educational standards are not high enough.
Pupils in rural areas are more likely to achieve 5 or more GCSEs including English and mathematics at grades A*-C. Considering local area deprivation, however, pupils living in rural areas are less likely to achieve the same standards as pupils living in similarly deprived urban areas of the country.
We have already designated over 690 teaching schools and 1,050 national leaders of education (NLEs) in our drive to ensure that educational excellence is a reality in all areas of the country, particularly those that need most support. The new National Teaching Service (NTS) will place 1,500 outstanding teachers and middle leaders in underperforming schools by 2020, particularly in rural and other areas of the country that find it hardest to attract, retain and recruit good teachers.
Regional Schools Commissioners are ensuring the availability of strong academy sponsors for schools in all areas of the country including rural areas. The Department recently announced that five sponsors will receive funding from the Northern Fund to set up seven new hubs across three RSC regions.
We will introduce National Funding Formulas (NFF) for schools, high needs and early years so that funding is transparently and fairly matched to need rather than purely historic calculations.
Asked by: Tom Pursglove (Conservative - Corby)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many civil servants in her Department are members of trades unions; how much working hours facility time is claimed by each such civil servant; and what the cost of that facility time is to her Department.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department for Education does not hold records on how many civil servants are members of a trade union.
The Cabinet Office publishes data relating to civil service facility time on a quarterly basis. The latest data is Quarter 4, 2014 and is available online here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/trade-union-facility-time