Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what his Department's position is in response to the recommendations of the Higher Education Policy Institute's recent report entitled Illicit drug use in universities: zero tolerance or harm reduction?, published on 3 March 2022, which calls on the education sector to drop the zero tolerance approach to illicit drug use for personal users.
Answered by Michelle Donelan
This government strongly supports activity by universities and other partners to raise awareness of the harms of illicit drugs and to discourage drug misuse by young people. Illicit drugs are harmful and there is no safe way to take them.
As independent and autonomous institutions, higher education providers are responsible for their own policies in relation to illegal drugs.
Universities UK has set up a taskforce to help universities understand and address drug-use. The first meeting of the taskforce takes place this month and it will look to set out a common approach to reduce harms from drug use and to better tackle supply.
Its work will include production of evidence-led sector guidance, developed with students, staff and wider stakeholders, including recommendations based on harm reduction. The taskforce will also look to better understand supply of, demand for, and use of drugs in the UK student population, as well as make student drug use visible as a welfare and health issue.
The government’s 10-year drugs plan was published in December 2021 and is a formal, substantive response to the independent review of drugs led by Dame Carol Black. The plan includes an aim to drive behaviour change to reduce the demand for drugs, and commits to further research and testing messaging through an evidence-based, targeted behaviour change initiative, initially aimed at students in further and higher education.
The UK student-led charity Students Organising for Sustainability launched the Drug and Alcohol Impact programme in October 2020. University and students’ union partnerships were invited to sign up to a 2-year commitment to obtain accreditation under the scheme. This required achieving levels of practice in areas including knowledge and understanding of student drug use, collaboration with key stakeholders, policy changes, and harm reduction interventions.
The programme was successfully piloted with four partnerships, with two more joining in the 2021/22 academic year. It is now being scaled up.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of polices on reducing drug use on university campuses.
Answered by Michelle Donelan
This government strongly supports activity by universities and other partners to raise awareness of the harms of illicit drugs and to discourage drug misuse by young people. Illicit drugs are harmful and there is no safe way to take them.
As independent and autonomous institutions, higher education providers are responsible for their own policies in relation to illegal drugs.
Universities UK has set up a taskforce to help universities understand and address drug-use. The first meeting of the taskforce takes place this month and it will look to set out a common approach to reduce harms from drug use and to better tackle supply.
Its work will include production of evidence-led sector guidance, developed with students, staff and wider stakeholders, including recommendations based on harm reduction. The taskforce will also look to better understand supply of, demand for, and use of drugs in the UK student population, as well as make student drug use visible as a welfare and health issue.
The government’s 10-year drugs plan was published in December 2021 and is a formal, substantive response to the independent review of drugs led by Dame Carol Black. The plan includes an aim to drive behaviour change to reduce the demand for drugs, and commits to further research and testing messaging through an evidence-based, targeted behaviour change initiative, initially aimed at students in further and higher education.
The UK student-led charity Students Organising for Sustainability launched the Drug and Alcohol Impact programme in October 2020. University and students’ union partnerships were invited to sign up to a 2-year commitment to obtain accreditation under the scheme. This required achieving levels of practice in areas including knowledge and understanding of student drug use, collaboration with key stakeholders, policy changes, and harm reduction interventions.
The programme was successfully piloted with four partnerships, with two more joining in the 2021/22 academic year. It is now being scaled up.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what fiscal steps he plans to take to support university and college students in the context of the the rise in cost of living.
Answered by Michelle Donelan
We are freezing maximum tuition fees for the 2022/23, 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years. By the 2024/25 academic year, maximum fees will have been frozen for seven years.
Students from the lowest-income households have access to the largest ever amounts of support for their living costs in cash terms. Maximum grants and loans for living costs were increased by 3.1% this academic year, and we have announced that they will increase by a further 2.3% next year.
Many providers have hardship funds that students can apply to for assistance should individuals’ finances be affected in academic year 2021/22.
Grant funding to the Office for Students (OfS) for the 2021/22 financial year included an allocation of £5 million to higher education providers in England in order to provide additional support for student hardship.
In our guidance to the OfS on funding for the 2021/22 financial year we made clear that the OfS should protect the £256 million allocation for the student premiums to support disadvantaged students and those that need additional help.
Advice is available from providers and from other sources online to help students manage their money while they are attending their courses.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much funding for SEND the Government has allocated to local authorities in (a) 2015, (b) 2016, (c) 2017, (d) 2018, (e) 2019, (f) 2020 and (g) 2021.
Answered by Will Quince
The national funding formula (NFF) continues to distribute core schools funding fairly, based on the needs of schools and their pupil cohorts.
The government does not allocate specific amounts for mainstream school pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Within the total funding allocated, local authorities are required by regulations to provide schools with sufficient funds to enable them to provide additional support costing up to £6,000 for each pupil with SEND. When support costs for an individual pupil exceed £6,000 per year, the local authority provides top-up funding from its high needs budget.
High needs funding is allocated to local authorities for children and young people with more complex SEND. The total high needs funding allocations for all local authorities since the 2015-16 financial year are as follows:
Financial year | Total high needs block funding (£ million) |
2015/16 | 5,247 |
2016/17 | 5,300 |
2017/18 | 5,827 |
2018/19 | 6,115 |
2019/20 | 6,279 |
2020/21 | 7,063 |
2021/22 | 7,906 |
2022/23[1] | 8,981 |
[1] 2022/23 figures are provisional, including supplementary funding
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much funding for education the Government has allocated to local authorities in (a) 2015, (b) 2016, (c) 2017, (d) 2018, (e) 2019, (f) 2020 and (g) 2021.
Answered by Robin Walker
The published dedicated schools grant allocation tables contain details of early years entitlement funding distributed to local authorities. This is summarised in the attached table. The table shows final allocations, except for the financial year 2021/22 which shows initial allocations:
Time period (financial year) | Early years block in the DSG (£ million) |
2015-16 | 2,735 |
2016-17 | 2,701 |
2017-18 | 3,277 |
2018-19 | 3,578 |
2019-20 | 3,618 |
2020-21 | 3,627 |
2021-22 | 3,550 |
Most of the funding that the department provides for the provision of education, both for schools and high needs provision, is allocated to local authorities in the first instance. Local authorities are allocated most of their funding for schools and high needs through the dedicated schools grant (DSG).
Funding for academies is paid directly to trusts by the Education and Skills Funding Agency. However, local authorities set the local formulae that determine academies’ allocations. Local authorities’ DSG allocations take account of the funding made available for all schools in their local areas. There are also other grants which the department pays to local authorities in the first instance. The department then asks local authorities to pass those on to the maintained schools in their area. This includes, for example, the pupil premium grant. The pupil premium helps schools improve the academic attainment and wider outcomes of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, and total pupil premium funding will increase to over £2.6 billion in financial year 2022/23, from £2.5 billion this year.
The table shows funding since the 2015/16 financial year for the education of 5 to 16-year-olds in England, in all state-funded schools. This is based on the annual release of the school funding statistics, which can be accessed at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-funding-statistics.
The published statistics include the schools block, central school services block and most of the high needs block of the DSG, pupil premium grant funding, the supplementary free school meals grant, the early career framework grant, and the teachers’ pay grant and teachers’ pension employer contribution grant (which have been rolled into the DSG from 2021/22). The coverage has been chosen both to capture core funding for schools and to ensure the series is as comparable over time as possible, despite changes to the specific grants allocated to schools and local authorities over the years shown.
The figures do not include any funding allocated to support with the response to the COVID-19 outbreak, because the inclusion of this time-limited funding to support schools would cause inconsistencies in the time series. Since June 2020, we have announced nearly £5 billion of investment for education recovery to support children and young people to catch up on missed education, and more information can be found in the annex to the school funding statistics publication above.
Figures in the funding time series are rounded to the nearest £100 million.
Time period (financial year) | School funding (£ million) | School funding plus post-16 high needs funding (£ million) |
2015-16 | 39,600 | 40,100 |
2016-17 | 40,200 | 40,700 |
2017-18 | 40,900 | 41,500 |
2018-19 | 42,500 | 43,100 |
2019-20 | 44,400 | 45,100 |
2020-21 | 47,600 | 48,300 |
2021-22 | 49,600 | 50,300 |
The table below provides the amount of 16-19 funding that has been allocated to local authorities in England. This excludes post-16 high needs but includes funding that goes directly to local authorities, and the funding they receive for school sixth forms, as set out in the published 16 to 19 allocations data. This is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/16-to-19-allocation-data-2021-to-2022-academic-year.
Time period (academic year) | Total 16-19 programme funding allocated to local authorities (£ million) |
2015/16 | 589 |
2016/17 | 525 |
2017/18 | 468 |
2018/19 | 407 |
2019/20 | 369 |
2020/21 | 398 |
2021/22 | 411 |
Funding allocations for 19 year-olds and beyond, including allocations to local authorities, are published at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/19-funding-allocations.
Since the start of the 2019/20 academic year, a proportion of the adult education budget (AEB) has been devolved to several mayoral combined authorities and the Greater London Authority. Approximately 50% was devolved in the 2019/20 and 2020/21 academic years, and 60% was devolved in the 2021/22 academic year. The mayoral combined authorities and the Greater London Authority are responsible for deciding which providers they contract with the amount of AEB they allocate to them.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will include safeguarding from sexual orientation and gender identity conversion therapy in his Department's guidance entitled Keeping children safe in education.
Answered by Will Quince
The department’s statutory safeguarding guidance 'keeping children safe in education' (KCSIE) contains extensive safeguarding advice which all schools and colleges must have regard to when carrying out their duties to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.
It contains extensive advice about all forms of abuse and neglect including the indicators of these harms. KCSIE is clear that all staff should have an awareness of safeguarding issues that can put children at risk of harm. So-called conversion therapy, whilst not explicitly referenced, may well in many instances fall into this category.
Currently so-called conversion therapy is not illegal, though some of the practices will be as they are already considered to be abusive and/or illegal.
KCSIE currently contains guidance on matters such as female genital mutilation and other specific harms that are underpinned by legislation. Once similar legislation is in place for so-called conversion therapy we will consider whether it is necessary and/or appropriate to reflect any changes in KCSIE as we do on a routine and annual basis.
The department has undertaken extensive communications with the sector and continues to consider what more it can do on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) matters such as this.
We are currently consulting on revisions to KCSIE for 2022, in which we have incorporated departmental advice, such as on the issue of sexual violence and sexual harassment between children in schools and colleges. In particular we have reminded schools and colleges of their legal duties with regard to the Human Rights Act 1998, the Equality Act 2010 and the Public Sector Equality Duty. We have also included a new section on how children who are LGBT can be targeted by other children. In some cases, a child who is perceived by other children to be LGBT (whether they are or not) can be just as vulnerable as children who identify as LGBT.
We expect to publish revised guidance for information in May 2022, with it coming into force in September 2022.
The consultation can be found here: https://consult.education.gov.uk/safeguarding-in-schools-team/kcsie-proposed-revisions-2022/.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Disabled Children's Partnership Count Disabled Children In polling results, released 17 January 2022, what recent steps he has taken to reduce the time taken to consider Education, Health and Care Plan assessments for disabled children.
Answered by Will Quince
The department works closely with the Disabled Children’s Partnership and we are reviewing the findings of their latest report.
The Children and Families Act 2014 (Section 97) requires local authorities to assess and support the needs of parents/carers as well as those of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Assessments are based on individual needs but should include parents’ well-being and ‘control over day-to-day life’.
The SEND code of practice also makes clear that local authorities must give their decision in response to any request for an education, health and care (EHC) needs assessment within a maximum of 6 weeks from when the request was received or the point at which a child or young person was brought to the local authority’s attention.
However, the SEND system currently does not deliver for all children and young people with SEND. We further recognise that the COVID-19 outbreak disproportionately impacted young people with SEND and their families, which is why we are conducting a review of the SEND system. The department uses data to monitor and assess local authority performance and has been supporting local authorities to meet their statutory duties for SEND, including by providing challenge and support to those local authorities where there are long-standing delays.
Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission continue with their full inspection programme and our team of SEND advisers and colleagues in NHS England are continuing to provide support and challenge to help improve performance.
Depending on the underlying issues that each local authority faces, such as those relating to EHC assessments, we commission specialist and regional support from our delivery partners or facilitate peer to peer support.