Asked by: Tristram Hunt (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many jobs in (a) her Department and (b) each of her Department's non-departmental public bodies, executive agencies, non-ministerial departments, advisory bodies and other accountable statutory bodies (i) have been abolished in or relocated from East Cheshire Local Authority since 2010 and (ii) will be abolished in or relocated from East Cheshire Local Authority by 2020.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The Department records actual staffing levels, but does not centrally record the number of jobs by location. Records show that since 2010 neither (a) the Department or (b) the Department’s executive non-departmental public bodies and statutory bodies, including Advisory and Tribunal NDPBs, have had staff based within the Cheshire East local authority area.
There are therefore no plans for posts to be reduced in this area. The Department’s executive non-departmental Public Bodies are:
• the Independent Police Complaints Commission;
• the Gangmasters Licensing Authority;
• the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner;
• the Security Industry Authority; and
• the Disclosure and Barring Service
Furthermore the National Crime Agency, a non-ministerial government department, and the College of Policing also do not have offices or staff based in Cheshire East.
Asked by: Tristram Hunt (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Scotland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, what discussions he has had with Ministers of the Scottish Government on the effect of declining oil prices on public finances in Scotland.
Answered by David Mundell
I regularly engage with Ministers of the Scottish Government on a wide range of economic matters. As last week’s independent OBR estimates show, revenues from the North Sea are forecast to be negative for the next three years. March’s GERS figures show Scotland’s public spending was almost £15 billion more than its tax revenue in the last financial year. Thankfully, the north east of Scotland can rely on the broad shoulders of the United Kingdom to see it through these difficult times.
Asked by: Tristram Hunt (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the adequacy of the distribution of teacher training places in the (a) North Staffordshire sub-region and (b) West Midlands region.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department for Education has changed the approach to initial teacher training (ITT) allocations for the 2016 to 2017 academic year. The National College for Teaching and Leadership are not allocating a specific number of places to individual organisations for postgraduate ITT courses due to start in the 2016 to 2017 academic year. Instead, eligible schools, school-centred initial teacher training providers (SCITTs) and higher education institutions (HEIs) will be able to recruit as many trainees as they feel they need (subject to a limited number of controls), until the overall system has recruited a sufficient number.
School Direct lead schools, SCITTs and universities across all regions have been given greater freedom for the 2016/17 academic year to manage their recruitment according to local need.
We are monitoring regional recruitment across all subjects, including the West Midlands region. However, as School Direct and SCITT partnerships cover large geographical areas, we are not monitoring recruitment at a sub-regional level.
To date, the only challenge in geographical distribution of ITT places has been found in the London region in recruitment to primary, which was recruiting slower than other regions. In this case we have allowed school led routes (i.e. School Direct (tuition fee) and SCITTs) in this region to continue to recruit to primary courses to ensure that enough trainees are recruited. For all other regions, recruitment is broadly the same as in 2015/16 with some areas showing an increase.
We are prepared to use reserve recruitment controls in other subjects, or for other regions, as required.
Asked by: Tristram Hunt (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Prime Minister's oral contribution of 2 March 2016, Official Report, column 943, what the evidential basis is for the statement that there are 36,500 fewer pupils in overcrowded schools than in 2010.
Answered by Edward Timpson
I refer the Honourable member to my response to question 29204 submitted to Parliament on Friday 4 March 2016. The answer shows that the total number of primary and secondary pupils in excess of capacity has reduced by 47,513 between 2010 and 2014.
Asked by: Tristram Hunt (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 29 February 2016 to Question 28207, how many and which local authorities have notified her Department about plans to dispose of grant-funded assets through the (a) sale, (b) transfer and (c) change of use of children's centres.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The decision whether to dispose of grant funded assets is a local issue. We have a thorough process in place to consider whether the local authority should be subject to claw back as a result of the disposal of grant funded assets which was outlined in the response to Question 28207.
Asked by: Tristram Hunt (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that the supply of newly-qualified teachers is not affected by imbalances in the distribution of teacher training places at a sub-regional level.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department for Education has changed the approach to initial teacher training (ITT) allocations for the 2016 to 2017 academic year. The National College for Teaching and Leadership are not allocating a specific number of places to individual organisations for postgraduate ITT courses due to start in the 2016 to 2017 academic year. Instead, eligible schools, school-centred initial teacher training providers (SCITTs) and higher education institutions (HEIs) will be able to recruit as many trainees as they feel they need (subject to a limited number of controls), until the overall system has recruited a sufficient number.
As School Direct and SCITT partnerships cover large geographical areas, we are monitoring recruitment at a regional level only. To date, the only challenge in geographical distribution of ITT places has been found in the London region in recruitment to primary, which was recruiting slower than other regions. In this case we have allowed school led routes (i.e. School Direct (tuition fee) and SCITTs) in this region to continue to recruit to primary courses to ensure that enough trainees are recruited.
We are prepared to use reserve recruitment controls in other subjects, or for other regions as required.
Asked by: Tristram Hunt (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Prime Minister's oral contribution of 10 February 2016, Official Report, column 1576, what the evidential basis is for the statement that there are 47,500 fewer pupils in overcrowded schools than in 2010.
Answered by Edward Timpson
The department collects information from each local authority on the number of schools, the number of places in those schools and the number of pupils on roll through the annual school capacity survey (SCAP). The data is published annually, and the main tables contain national and local authority level data. The latest published data, relating to the position as reported by local authorities at May 2014, can be found on GOV.UK at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-capacity-academic-year-2013-to-2014
Previous years are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-school-capacity
In both the 2014 and 2010 data publications, the table below shows capacity in state funded primary and secondary schools. In 2010 there were a total of 97,230 primary and secondary pupils in excess of capacity. In 2014 this had reduced to 49,717, meaning that 47,513 fewer pupils were excess of capacity in 2014 than in 2010.
Number of pupils in excess of school capacity | ||
State-funded primary schools | 2010 | 41,680 |
State-funded secondary schools | 2010 | 55,550 |
State-funded primary schools | 2014 | 30,737 |
State-funded secondary schools | 2014 | 18,980 |
State-funded primary schools | Change 2010 to 2014 | 10,943 |
State-funded secondary schools | Change 2010 to 2014 | 36,570 |
Total | Change 2010 to 2014 | 47,513 |
Asked by: Tristram Hunt (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, which higher education institution providers of initial teacher education have reduced their allocation for PGCE secondary training in (a) history, (b) geography, (c) English and (d) STEM subjects in 2015-16; and what that reduction is as a proportion of that provider's 2014-15 allocations in each case.
Answered by Nick Gibb
For the 2014/15 and 2015/16 academic years, we operated an allocations system to distribute initial teacher training (ITT) places directly to School Direct lead schools, school-centred initial teacher training providers (SCITTs) and higher education institutions (HEIs). For recent years detailed initial and final allocations data for individual HEIs can be found on GOV.UK:
2015/16 GOV.UK links:
Initial allocations: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/initial-teacher-training-allocations-for-academic-year-2015-to-2016
Final allocations summary: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/initial-teacher-training-itt-recruitment-controls
Summary of final core postgraduate ITT places available to all HEIs in:
(a) history = 243;
(b) geography = 462;
(c) English = 866; and
(d) STEM* = 5081)
2014/15 GOV.UK links:
Summary of final core postgraduate places available to all HEIs in:
(a) history = 363;
(b) geography = 472;
(c) English = 867 and
(d) STEM* = 5086)
*STEM subjects include: Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Design & Technology and Computing.
Asked by: Tristram Hunt (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, on how many occasions a special adviser of her Department has accompanied a Minister on a foreign trip since 1 October 2015; and what the cost of that travel has been.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Special advisers have not accompanied any Ministers on an international visit since 1 October 2015.
Asked by: Tristram Hunt (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the adequacy of the supply of newly-qualified mathematics teachers in Stoke-on-Trent.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department for Education uses the Teacher Supply Model (TSM) to estimate the national requirements for the number of postgraduate Initial Teacher Training places to meet demand, including mathematics.
The 2016/17 version of the TSM, which was used to inform the 2016/17 ITT recruitment process, along with a user guide explaining the methodology in detail, is available at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/teacher-supply-model