Education
Will Quince Excerpts(9 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Gillian Keegan
… There will be more investment in educational psychologists, of which there will be another 400, and more investment in early years SENCOs, of which there will be up to another 7,000.
Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)
Similarly to my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena), I welcome the introduction of a new SENCO national professional qualification—I declare an interest, as my wife is a SENCO—but to create a truly inclusive school environment, all teachers need the knowledge, skills and practical training to support children with special educational needs and disabilities. What steps is my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State taking to ensure that initial teacher training gives them that support and training?
Gillian Keegan
… As I said in answer to the earlier question, there is a golden thread of high-quality teacher training reforms. We will be looking at a revised framework and working with providers so that they can ensure that the contracts deliver the very best support for teachers. What will be vital, and something that Members will feel, is the additional 7,000 SENCOs that will be trained in the coming years.
[Official Report, 29 January 2024, Vol. 744, c. 590.]
Letter of correction from the Secretary of State for Education:
An error has been identified in my response to my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince). The correct response should have been:
Oral Answers to Questions
Will Quince Excerpts(10 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Gillian Keegan
We are implementing a gold thread of high-quality teacher training reforms to ensure that teachers have the skills they need. The Department has been exploring opportunities to build expertise, through a review of the initial teacher training core content framework and the early career framework, to identify how we can equip new teachers to be more confident in meeting the needs of children and young people with SEND. There will be more investment in educational psychologists, of which there will be another 400, and more investment in early years SENCOs, of which there will be another 7,000.
Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)
Similarly to my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena), I welcome the introduction of a new SENCO national professional qualification—I declare an interest, as my wife is a SENCO—but to create a truly inclusive school environment, all teachers need the knowledge, skills and practical training to support children with special educational needs and disabilities. What steps is my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State taking to ensure that initial teacher training gives them that support and training?
Gillian Keegan
I thank my hon. Friend for his question, and also for all the work he has done in this area. We worked together when he was Minister for children and families and I was working in the Department of Health and Social Care, and it is something that we both care deeply about.
As I said in answer to the earlier question, there is a golden thread of high-quality teacher training reforms. We will be looking at a revised framework and working with providers so that they can ensure that the contracts deliver the very best support for teachers. What will be vital, and something that Members will feel, is the additional 7,000 SENCOs that will be trained in the coming years.
Contingency Fund Application: Departmental Update
Will Quince Excerpts(2 years, 3 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Will Quince)
I hereby give notice of the Department for Education’s intention to seek an advance from the Contingencies Fund.
This follows the Department’s announcement on 11 March that a new independent Government body will be created to support teachers in delivering excellent curriculum content as part of world-class lessons. The body will help every child in the country reach the true height of their potential.
The body is expected to become fully operational from autumn following a transition phase, which will include procurement and development of new resources. The first new resources will be available to teachers by September 2023. The body has been incorporated as Oak National Academy Ltd.
Parliamentary approval for additional resources of £2,809,000 and capital of £3,869,000 for this new expenditure will be sought in a supplementary estimate for the Department for Education. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure estimated at £6,678,000 will be met by repayable cash advances from the Contingencies Fund.
We will seek a movement of funding in budgetary requirements at supplementary estimate. Accessing the Contingency Fund allows the Department to manage the expenditure associated with establishing and launching the new body.
I am therefore seeking parliamentary approval for costs of £6,678,000. The advance will be repaid upon receiving approval of the supplementary estimate.
[HCWS277]
Schools, High Needs and Central School Services: Provisional Funding Allocations 2023-24
Will Quince Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Education (Will Quince)
Today I am confirming provisional funding allocations for 2023-24 through the schools, high needs and central school services national funding formulae (NFF). Overall, core schools funding (including funding for mainstream schools and high needs) is increasing by £1.5 billion in 2023-24 compared to the previous year, on top of the £4 billion increase in 2022-23.
High needs funding is increasing by a further £570 million, or 6.3%, in 2023-24—following the £2.6 billion increase over the last three years. This brings the total high needs budget to over £9.7 billion. All local authorities will receive at least a 5% increase per head of their 2-18 population, compared to their 2022-23 allocations, with some authorities seeing gains of up to 7%. Alongside our continued investment in high needs, the Government remain committed to ensuring a financially sustainable system where resources are effectively targeted to need. The consultation on the SEND and alternative provision Green Paper closes on 22 July, and the Government will confirm the next steps in implementing our reform programme later this year.
Funding for mainstream schools through the schools NFF is increasing by 1.9% per pupil compared to 2022-23. Taken together with the funding increases seen in 2022-23, this means that funding through the schools NFF will be 7.9% higher per pupil in 2023-24, compared to 2021-22.
The NFF will distribute this funding based on schools’ and pupils’ needs and characteristics. The main features in 2023-24 are:
The core factors in the schools NFF (such as basic per-pupil funding, and the lump sum that all schools attract) will increase by 2.4%.
Funding for disadvantaged pupils will see greater increases—with funding for two deprivation factors in the NFF increasing by a greater amount than other factors. These two factors (relating to pupils who have been eligible for free school meals at any point over the last six years, and the IDACI factor which relates to relative deprivation between local areas) will increase by 4.3% compared to their 2022-23 values.
The funding floor will ensure that every school attracts at least 0.5% more pupil-led funding per pupil compared to its 2022-23 NFF allocation.
The minimum per-pupil funding levels (MPPLs) will increase by 0.5% compared to 2022-23. This will mean that, next year, every primary school will receive at least £4,405 per pupil, and every secondary school at least £5,715. Academy trusts continue to have flexibilities over how they allocate funding across academies in their trust. This means, in some cases, an academy could receive a lower per-pupil funding amount than the MPPL value. This may reflect, for example, activities that are paid for by the trust centrally, rather than by individual academies.
The 2022-23 schools supplementary grant has been rolled into the schools NFF. Adding the grant funding to the NFF ensures that this additional funding forms part of schools’ core budgets and will continue to be provided.
We are targeting a greater proportion of schools NFF funding towards deprived pupils than ever before—with 9.8% of the schools NFF allocated to deprivation in 2023-24. This will help schools in their vital work to close attainment gaps and level up educational opportunities. In 2023-24, schools in the highest quartile of deprivation (measured by the percentage of pupils who have been eligible for free school meals over the past six years) will, on average, attract larger per-pupil funding increases than less deprived schools.
As previously confirmed in the Government’s response to the consultation on completing our reforms to the NFF, 2023-24 will also be our first year of transition to the “direct” schools NFF—with our end point being a system in which, to ensure full fairness and consistency in funding, every mainstream school in England is funded through the same national formula without adjustment through local funding formulae. In 2023-24 local authorities will only be allowed to use NFF factors in their local formulae, and must use all NFF factors, except the locally determined premises factors. Local authorities will also be required to move their local formulae factors 10% closer to the NFF values, compared to where they were in 2022-23, unless their local formulae are already so close to the NFF that they are classed as “mirroring” the NFF. This follows the positive response to these proposals in the consultation last year. Alongside the NFF publications, today we have published an analysis of the impact of this initial move towards the direct NFF in the national funding formula for schools and high needs 2023-24 policy document.
Central school services funding is provided to local authorities for the ongoing responsibilities they have for all schools. The total provisional funding for ongoing responsibilities is £292 million in 2023-24. In line with the process introduced for 2020-21, to withdraw funding over time for the historic commitments local authorities entered into before 2013-14, funding for historic commitments will decrease by a further 20% in 2023-24.
Confirmed allocations of schools, high needs and central schools services funding for 2023-24 will be published in December. These will be based on the latest pupil data at that point.
[HCWS225]
National Tutoring Programme: Performance Data
Will Quince Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Education (Will Quince)
This update presents the latest performance data for the National Tutoring Programme the Government are publishing today. On 26 May, the Secretary of State for Education (James Cleverly) announced an estimated 1.2 million courses had been started through the programme since the start of this academic year. I am now pleased to advise the House our latest estimates show that, up to 26 June, 1.78 million courses have started this year, and just over two million since the programme’s launch. This increase of more than half a million represents good progress towards the Government’s ambitious target of delivering up to six million courses by the end of the academic year 2023-24. My Department estimates that more than 80% of schools are now participating, and more than three quarters of the courses started this year are being delivered through the “School-Led” option, by schools using grant funding directly allocated to them. I will update the House on the complete year’s performance by the end of 2022.
The Secretary of State for Education also advised the House on 26 May that we had launched procurement activity to appoint delivery partners for the ’22-23 and ’23-24 academic years to support schools to develop and deliver a high-quality tutoring offer. I am pleased to report that, following the open competitive exercise, we are today announcing the successful applicants. To quality assure Tuition Partners, we are appointing Tribal, with whom the Department currently has various contracts, including for moderating NPQ awards, and the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics. To train new tutors, we are appointing the Education Development Trust, which currently delivers NTP tutor training to staff already employed in schools who want to become SLT tutors, ECF/NPQs and the Behaviour Hubs programme. To recruit and deploy academic mentors, we are appointing Cognition Education, with which the Department currently contracts for the Career Change Programme, and which provides subject matter expertise to T Level providers.
Following our 26 May announcement of the methodology for allocating tutoring funding to schools next year, this week we will publish academic year ’22-23 National Tutoring Programme funding allocations for each school.
[HCWS226]
Free School Meals: Eligibility
Will Quince Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Education (Will Quince)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) on securing a debate on this important subject. I echo the comments of other colleagues about her tireless work to raise awareness of the challenges that our most disadvantaged children face. Indeed, she raised this issue as recently with me as last Monday at Education questions, although it feels almost a lifetime ago.
Let me also put on record how pleased I am to be back at the Department for Education, after a 24-hour interlude. The hon. Lady knows how passionate I am about this work and how delighted I am to be able to continue it. She also knows of my long-standing interest in this issue, both in the past 10 months as Minister at the Department for Education and over the previous two and a half years as a Minister at the Department for Work and Pensions.
This Government are committed to supporting those on low incomes and continue to do so through many measures, such as spending over £108 billion a year on working-age benefit support and by recently taking wide-ranging action, to which the hon. Lady rightly pointed, to directly address cost of living pressures. She specifically referenced free school meals, and I will focus my comments on that area.
The Government and I are committed to providing free school meals to children from households who are out of work or on low incomes. This is of the utmost importance, both to me personally and the Government. Under the current criteria, there are around 1.9 million pupils who are eligible for and claiming a free school meal at lunchtime, which saves families hundreds of pounds per year per child. This number equates to approximately 22.5% of all pupils and is up from around 15% of pupils in 2015. The increases are due in part to the protections during the roll-out of universal credit. In making sure that these children receive a healthy, nutritious meal, we are helping to ensure they are well nourished, develop healthy eating habits, and can concentrate and learn—points that the hon. Lady rightly raised.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
The Minister will be aware that lots of school food providers have said that, because of the cost of living crisis, nutritional standards are going to go down and they will have to substitute food for something else. What will he do about that?
Will Quince
I thank the hon. Lady for that question. I have heard the call from the sector. We have increased funding for the universal infant free school meals rate to reflect this. Also, the core schools budget is increasing. I am acutely aware of the global inflation pressures. Schools are not immune to that. I will continue to work with the sector and with schools to ensure that schools are able to provide healthy, balanced and nutritious meals.
I mentioned the 1.9 million eligible pupils. A further 1.25 million infants are supported through the universal infant free school meal policy, as I just referenced. Already the greatest proportion ever of school children—around 37.5%—are provided with a free school meal at lunchtime, at a cost of over £1 billion a year. However, we do not stop there. Last year, more than 600,000 children were provided with healthy food and enriching activities through the holiday activities and food programme, which is provided in all the major holidays, including over the summer. We have committed to spending an extra £200,000 per year throughout the spending review period, and I am pleased to say that all 152 local authorities across England are delivering this programme.
We then have our £24 million national schools breakfast programme, which means thousands of pupils are benefitting from a healthy, nutritious breakfast. There are also 2.2 million key stage 1 pupils provided with a free portion of fruit or vegetables every day. For the youngest in our society, we have the healthy start voucher scheme, which provides a vital safety net for hundreds of thousands of lower-income pregnant women and families with children under the age of four.
I understand that the hon. Lady wants us to go further and extend free school meal eligibility. I will come to some of the points she raised in a moment, but I will start by setting out what we have already done in this area. Under this Government, eligibility for free school meals has been extended several times and to more groups of children than under any other Government over the past half a century. That includes the introduction of universal infant free school meals and the further education entitlement.
Will Quince
I will give way in a moment. I want to mention a piece of work in which I have been specifically involved, both in my previous role at the Department for Work and Pensions and in my current role: permanently extending eligibility to children from families with no recourse to public funds, which is hugely important but subject to income thresholds. That came into effect at Easter.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
The Minister is being generous in giving way. Does he not accept that eligibility has had to be extended repeatedly because there are more and more children in poverty? When are this Government going to get to grips with the root causes of the endemic poverty that children in this country are suffering from?
Will Quince
I hear what the hon. Lady says. I have always said to her that I continue to keep eligibility under review for the reasons she has mentioned. We could have a separate debate on the root causes of poverty, and I could talk about the work undertaken in my previous role by the Department for Work and Pensions over the past two and a half years to support people and empower them into work, but that is a debate for another day.
I shall focus on free school meals in particular, although I will touch on universal credit because the protections in place as we roll it out are important. All children eligible for a free school meal at the point at which the threshold was introduced and all those who become eligible as universal credit is rolled out will continue to receive free school meals, even if their household circumstances change dramatically. For example, if those circumstances improve and move them above the earnings threshold, they will not lose that eligibility, which they otherwise would. Even after protections end, if they are still in school, those children will continue to be protected until the end of their phase of education, whether primary or secondary.
Let me turn specifically to the points that the hon. Member for South Shields made about the universal credit threshold. Free school meal eligibility has long been governed by an earnings threshold. That was the same under the legacy benefits system under the previous Government. In April 2018, we updated our eligibility criteria to include the earnings threshold of £7,400 for families on universal credit. That was forecast at the time to increase the number of eligible pupils when compared with the legacy benefits system. That was a direct comparison, and it was designed to increase the number.
It is absolutely right that our provision is aimed at supporting the most disadvantaged—those out of work or on the lowest incomes. The current household earnings threshold is a bit misleading: we put it at £7,400, but that does not include benefit receipt, which means that total household income could be considerably higher than that while someone is receiving a free meal.
Ian Byrne
Where are we now in society? Come September or October, we will see further rises in the cost of heating a home. We have seen exponential price rises, as prices have moved massively and become totally unaffordable. Is it not time for the Minister to acknowledge that so many people who are above the threshold for universal credit are struggling, and to look to other nations in Europe that have implemented universal free school meals for data on the advancement of and the benefits to those societies, both economic and educational? I name Norway and Portugal.
Will Quince
I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, and I will continue to look at European and other comparators, and at eligibility.
In relation to what the hon. Gentleman—and, indeed, the hon. Member for South Shields—proposes as an in-work and out-of-work benefit, it is important to reference the fact of those on universal credit having that £7,400 earnings threshold. There will be people whose income exceeds £40,000 a year. I know there are people struggling across the country, even on what many would consider a reasonable income, because there is an inflationary shock for many people, and they have outgoings that reflect their earnings.
I will come to that, but while it is right that those families continue to receive a small amount of universal credit, which tapers as their earnings increase, not least to encourage and incentivise work, we have to recognise more broadly—notwithstanding the current inflationary pressures and cost of living pressures—that these are not the most disadvantaged households, which we want to target, or arguably should target, with support in this specific way.
That does not mean we should not be helping those people with specific, targeted support in other ways, which I will come to, but extending free school meal eligibility to all families on universal credit would, without question, carry a significant financial cost—one that I think would be much higher than that which the hon. Member for South Shields has referenced, although we can discuss that another day. It would quickly run into billions of pounds over a spending review and result in around half of all pupils becoming eligible for a free meal, which would have substantial knock-on effects for the affordability of linked provision—for example, the pupil premium, which is linked to eligibility for free school meals.
Having said all that, I understand and appreciate—I have a constituency myself and I speak with people every weekend—that many families are finding it tough, given the global inflationary pressures that affect the cost of living. The question is whether a permanent change to the eligibility criteria for free school meals is the right thing to do now—whether it is affordable and sufficiently targeted, and whether it could be delivered quickly enough if we wanted to operationalise it. My answer to all those points at the moment is no. As I say, the Government understand the pressures people face with the cost of living. These are global challenges, and that is why the Government are providing over £15 billion of further support, targeted particularly at those with the greatest need. We should not forget that this package is in addition to the over £22 billion that was announced previously, with Government support for the cost of living over the course of this year totalling over £37 billion.
Afzal Khan
The Minister says his answer is no. In Manchester, Gorton, a survey has shown that 80% of families are cutting back on food. Does he not agree that every young child deserves a good start in life and that food is one of the basics?
Will Quince
Of course, I agree. I do not want to see any child in this country going hungry or a single family in poverty. The hon. Gentleman raised support for councils in his intervention on the hon. Member for South Shields, and that is important. I referenced the £37 billion. I am biased because I originally set up the covid winter grant scheme, which has turned into the household support fund, and I am proud of the support it has provided to councils. That £37 billion includes an additional £500 million to help households with food and essential items. That is on top of what we have already provided since October 2021, and brings total funding for the household support fund to £1.5 billion. We did so because I genuinely believe that local authorities know their communities and those who are in need best and how to target them. There is another £421 million of additional support, which will run until March next year, with the devolved Administrations receiving an extra £79 million.
Let me turn to funding, which the hon. Lady also raised. In order to deliver the free school meal provision, we have increased the core funding for schools with the FSM factor—that is a bit of a mouthful—in the national funding formula. It has increased to £470 per eligible pupil this year to recognise rising inflation and the associated cost pressures, and from speaking with the sector and knowing the challenge that schools face. That was after the NFF rates were set, and we provided core funding through a schools supplementary grant. As a result, core mainstream schools funding will increase by £2.5 billion in 2022-23 compared with last year.
As I say, we already spend around £600 million on universal infant free school meals each year. The per meal rate, which I referenced earlier, was increased to £2.41, because I recognised that that needed to be done, and importantly I backdated that to 1 April this year, which represents an extra £18 million, in recognition of recent cost pressures.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
The Minister is doing as I expected and listing some of the things the Government have done, but what about the 800,000 children who are missing out? There will be more of them as the year continues. What support is there for them? Clearly, the support at the moment is not enough because they are still going to foodbanks, so what will he do for those children?
Will Quince
Of course, I work with colleagues and counterparts across Government to ensure that we are supporting people as much as we possibly can, and it is vital that that support is targeted. I referenced the £37 billion. Much of that is yet to come, such as the grants specifically for families and support via the household support fund. One thing I would say, having worked with the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he was Education Secretary, as well as with the previous Chancellor, is that they take an evidence-based approach, and if there is need out there, the Government will step up. I found that to be the case at the Department for Work and Pensions throughout the course of the pandemic. The Chancellor consistently stepped up to support the poorest and the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in our country, and I have no doubt that the Chancellor and the Prime Minister will continue to do so.
As I said, this is a hugely important issue, and I know how it affects some of the most disadvantaged children across our country. I thank the hon. Lady for raising it. It is important that the Government continue to be push to see how much further and faster we can go on these issues. Of course, as I said, I will keep all free school meal eligibility under review to ensure that these meals support those who need them most. As I have said, extending eligibility would be extremely costly, especially if the link between free school meals and other funding is included, such as the pupil premium. A threshold has to be set somewhere, and the current funding is targeted at those who need it most.
Question put and agreed to.
Early Years; Early Education and Childcare
Will Quince Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Will Quince)
This Government are committed to ensuring that families can access high quality and flexible childcare and early education that helps children to leam in their earliest years, provides enriching experiences around school hours and supports families and the economy by enabling parents to work.
With the cost of living rising, we want as many families as possible to benefit from the childcare support they are entitled to, saving them money, and helping to give children the best start in life.
This Government have extended access to early education and childcare to millions of children and parents over the past decade. We invest a significant amount of funding in early education and childcare, including over £3.5 billion in each of the past three years on early education entitlements for two, three and four-year-olds.
We have also introduced tax-free childcare, which provides working parents with support of up to £2,000 a year to help with childcare costs for children under 12, or £4,000 for disabled children under 17, and Universal Credit, where parents can claim back up to 85% of eligible childcare costs, compared to 70% under tax credits.
The Government have today announced plans to improve the cost, choice and availability of childcare that will benefit families and give childcare providers more flexibility and autonomy to make decisions about their settings and needs of children.
We will support more people to become childminders, which are generally the most affordable and flexible form of childcare, by:
Reducing the upfront costs of becoming a childminder via financial support.
Allowing childminders to spend more of their time working from a greater range of locations.
Clarifying flexibilities in childminders’ ratios when looking after their own children, or siblings of other children.
Working with Ofsted to reduce inspection for childminders.
Publishing a slimmed down, childminder specific Early Years Foundation Stage framework.
Encouraging the growth of Childminder Agencies—stimulating competition and driving down costs while providing parents with more options for care.
We will also streamline the Ofsted registration process for providers. More providers registering would mean that parents have a wider choice of providers on which to use these schemes, to pay for childcare that supports their working lives.
With safety and quality at the heart, as a first step, today I am also confirming the publication of two consultations:
Childcare ratios and supervision while eating consultation.
We are consulting on proposed changes to the current statutory minimum early years staff: child ratios in England for two-year-olds from 1:4 to 1:5; and clarifying flexibilities in childminders’ ratios when looking after their own children, or siblings of other children.
These proposals hand greater flexibility and autonomy to providers to exercise professional judgement in their staffing decisions, according to the needs of their children. This change would bring minimum requirements into line with those in Scotland.
As we continue this journey, there will be opportunities to explore further reform to statutory staffing requirements, and this document invites early views on some potential additional options.
We are also consulting on supervision requirements while children are eating, to ensure the safety of every child across early years settings. Engagement with early years providers to date suggests that for many settings, adequate supervision while eating is already understood to mean that children are within sight and hearing of a member of staff. We believe that an explicit requirement in the Early Years Foundation Stage will reinforce this practice and ensure the safety of children in early years settings.
The Early Years National Funding Formula and Maintained Nursery School funding consultation.
We are consulting on updates to the funding formulae for the two-year-old and three and four-year-old early education entitlements in England, the scope of which will also include the distribution of supplementary funding for maintained nursery schools.
We are proposing to update and adjust the funding formulae used to distribute the Government’s investment in the early years entitlements—which deliver 15 or 30 hours a week of free, high quality, flexible childcare for eligible two, three and four-year-olds for 38 weeks a year—fairly and transparently to local authorities across England.
Many of the datasets which underpin these formulae, and which we use to reflect geographical cost variation, are not up to date. It is important that they remain current, to ensure the funding system can be fair, effective and responsive to changing levels of need across different areas, with targeted investment towards those areas where it will do the most good. Subject to the outcome of the consultation, we are therefore planning to update the formulae for the 2023-24 financial year and intend to continue to do so annually thereafter. We are also consulting on proposals to mainstream the early years elements of the teachers’ pay grant and the teachers’ pension employer contribution grant from 2023-24, bringing early years in line with schools and high needs.
The proposed update will result in some changes to local authority funding levels given costs and levels of need in certain areas will have changed relative to others. As such, we are also consulting on applying new year-to-year protections to local authority funding rates, to help local markets to manage changes better. The 2021 spending review settlement allows us to offer protections which means that all local authorities will see an increase in the hourly rate that the Government provide for 2023-24.
We are also consulting on proposals to reform maintained nursery school supplementary funding. Maintained nursery schools make a valuable contribution to improving the lives of some of our most disadvantaged children. As we have confirmed continuation of maintained nursery school supplementary funding throughout the spending review period, it is now right to examine the way in which this funding is distributed to LAs. We are therefore proposing to invest an additional £10 million into maintained nursery school supplementary funding from 2023-24 and are consulting on proposals to create a fairer distribution of the funding across all LAs with maintained nursery schools.
Taken together, our current and proposed reforms not only reflect the Government’s commitment to supporting as many families as possible with access to high quality, affordable childcare, but also provide the foundation for taking a renewed look into the childcare system.
[HCWS175]
Oral Answers to Questions
Will Quince Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Will Quince)
The special educational needs and disabilities and alternative provision Green Paper aims to ensure that the right support is delivered in the right setting at the right time for all children and young people with SEND, including disabled children. To help to achieve that, it proposes nationally consistent SEND standards be set across education, health and care.
Mary Kelly Foy
At a virtual parliamentary event I hosted with the Disabled Children’s Partnership a few weeks ago, I heard from parent carers who had to fight tooth and nail to get the right school for their disabled child, one that met their needs. I have also heard those experiences from constituents in Durham. That is why it is so concerning that in the SEND Green Paper the Government are proposing to stop carers’ being able to specify a school for their disabled child, making the process even harder. Can the Minister outline how families with a disabled child will still be able to get the right education under this proposed policy?
Will Quince
I thank the hon. Lady for her question and I encourage everyone to take part in the SEND review consultation, which will expire on 22 July. The specific point she raises, on the tailored list of settings for parents in our proposal, is absolutely not about reducing costs; it is designed to support parents and carers in making an informed choice about which setting they would like their child to go to. I would be very happy to set out the policy in further detail in a meeting with her.
Grahame Morris
I commend research carried out by the Disabled Children’s Partnership, whose findings are quite disturbing. It is essential that the SEND Green Paper that the Minister refers to improves accountability in the system. I have also consulted with my constituents in east Durham, who say that not only must disabled young people be able to get the support that they need and have a legal right to, but service providers must be held to account when they miss legal targets. What plans do the Government have to directly intervene when service providers do not meet their legal duties in respect of providing health, care and support to disabled young people in their care?
Will Quince
The hon. Gentleman is right that accountability has to be at the heart of our proposals, and everyone who provides support for children and young people with SEND has a responsibility to deliver it effectively. That is why we are creating new national standards, and creating local and national dashboards so that local authorities, organisations and those who provide SEND services can be held to account. He is absolutely right that accountability and redress mechanisms are at the heart of our proposals. This is a consultation, and it is live until 22 July. We are consulting because we genuinely want to hear the views of the sector and all the parents and carers of children with SEND. Of course I would be very happy to meet him.
Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)
My hon. Friend the Minister knows my passion for looking after children and young people around the SEND sector. I welcome the Green Paper and the consultation, because this is a debate that we have needed to have for some considerable time. But the issue in Hertfordshire is going to be around capacity, because the special educational needs schools in my constituency, which are brilliant, are full and double-oversubscribed. This is not all about money—it is sometimes about how it is provided—but there are serious financial problems in Hertfordshire, and I wonder if he would look at that seriously for me.
Will Quince
My right hon. Friend has raised this issue with me on numerous occasions. He is a doughty champion for children with SEND and their parents and carers in his constituency. Of course I will look at this very closely. These are not just words: we are backing this up with £2.6 billion of capital funding to build about 33,000 or 34,000 SEND places across our country, including in Hertfordshire.
Matt Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)
I thank the Minister and the Minister for School Standards, who jointly hosted a roundtable on how we better identify children with dyslexia. Can I invite the Minister to support my private Member’s Bill, which will have its Second Reading on 16 September, to make sure that we get the data from early screening so that we can identify children’s and young people’s needs and give them the help and support, and the knowledge that they have that support, to enable them to go on to thrive, flourish and make the most of their lives?
Will Quince
I thank my right hon. Friend for all his work in this area. It was a pleasure to join him at that roundtable. We want all children with SEND to get the right support in the right setting at the right time. At the heart of our reforms is early identification, early diagnosis and early support. Of course I will continue to work with him as we develop our plans as part of the review.
Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Will Quince)
Losing a parent to suicide is a devastating loss for any child. Our covid response provided additional information to schools on supporting pupils with bereavement, drawing on specialist provision where necessary. Senior mental health lead training will help schools to include this in their pastoral support. We are also expanding specialist mental health support, backed by an extra £2.3 billion per year.
Dame Caroline Dinenage
I was really disturbed to learn recently that there is evidence to suggest that children who lose a parent to suicide have a much greater risk of going on to take their own life as they grow older. With that in mind, I really want to put this on to the Minister’s radar and ask whether any particular suicide bereavement training, resources or signposting is provided to the staff who work in education settings to help them to support children effectively after they lose a family member such as a parent or sibling to suicide.
Will Quince
I thank my hon. Friend for bringing this to my attention. It is indeed a worrying state of affairs. Senior mental health lead training, which is backed by an additional £10 million this year, supports schools to establish a whole-school approach to mental health and mental wellbeing and provide a supportive environment for children experiencing bereavement. This will also include how to identify where staff need further training to understand children’s needs and offer support. However, I understand that we probably need to go further in this area, and of course I would be happy to meet her to discuss it at greater length.
Sarah Green (Chesham and Amersham) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Will Quince)
We are currently consulting on the special educational needs and disabilities and alternative provision Green Paper. This includes our proposal to establish a single national SEND and alternative provision system, setting nationally consistent standards. It will set out how needs should be identified and assessed, and the appropriate provision should be made available to meet those needs.
Sarah Green
I thank the Minister for his answer. I have spoken to multiple parents in my constituency whose disabled children are entering the summer holidays without knowing where they are going to be in September or whether the support they need will be in place because of a lengthy delay for an appointment with an educational psychologist. While I welcome the Government’s announcement about increasing funding for educational psychologists, the 2023 intake is too late to help young people who need this support now. How do the Government intend to tackle the backlog in this support and ensure that the SEND Green Paper addresses the funding gap in disabled children’s services?
Will Quince
The SEND Green Paper will go some way to addressing that issue. I thank the hon. Lady for her question; she is right to say that educational psychologists play a critical role in identifying need and advising on appropriate support through their statutory role in the education, health and care plan process. Since 2020, we have increased the number of educational psychologists and the trainees we fund to more than 200 from 160 per annum, and we recently announced that we are investing over £10 million to train over 200 more from September 2023.
James Grundy (Leigh) (Con)
Gary Sambrook (Birmingham, Northfield) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Will Quince)
I certainly agree with the SEND commissioner’s recommendations for Birmingham City Council to take responsibility for its SEND provision and rapidly make changes for improvement. I will of course continue to work closely with the commissioner and the council to monitor progress, and the Department will not hesitate to intervene further if Birmingham does not deliver on its plan to implement real lasting change. I have no doubt that my hon. Friend will hold it to account.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
A total of 800,000 children, more than 35,000 of whom live in the north-east, are in poverty and are being denied free school meals owing to punitive, Government-imposed eligibility criteria. Despite cross-party calls for eligibility to be extended to all families on universal credit, the Government have refused. Why?
Will Quince
About 1.9 million children receive benefit-related free school meals, with provision supporting the most disadvantaged. Eligibility has been extended to more groups of children under this Government than under any other over the past half century, and that includes the introduction of universal infant free school meals and further education free meals.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
Ministers keep telling us that it is important for parents to claim the tax breaks for childcare. Last year the Government spent just £150,000 on advertising them, saving the Treasury £3 billion. What additional funding has the Department secured for advertising child tax credit spending?
Will Quince
The hon. Lady and I have discussed this before. Today’s announcement was all about increasing accessibility, availability and affordability. We want to see an increase in tax-free childcare. There is going to be a big comms campaign, so watch this space.
Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con)
At the YMCA young carers festival which was held at Fairthorne Manor on Saturday, I learned that there was no central Government guidance for schools on providing support for young carers. Attendance policies can have a detrimental impact on their education and mental health. How will the Minister bring central guidance to schools to help these vulnerable people?
Children's Homes
Will Quince Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Will Quince)
Today I am providing an update on the Department’s response to whistleblowing allegations made to Ofsted and the BBC by former employees of Calcot Services for Children. The allegations describe shocking abuse and safeguarding failures in children’s homes run by Calcot, including allegations of grooming, rape, sexual assault, and of Calcot cutting corners on staffing ratios. This is something that I, and the Department, take with the utmost seriousness. We expect all children’s homes to provide the right support, care and protection for children who live there—no organisation should exploit those in need.
Calcot runs eight children’s homes and three independent schools in Reading and the surrounding areas for children with complex emotional, behavioural difficulties and or learning disabilities. Ofsted is responsible for regulating children’s homes and ensuring that action is taken where homes are not providing good quality and safe care for the children they look after. I met Her Majesty’s chief inspector at Ofsted on 14 June to discuss my concerns about Calcot. In the light of the most recent concerns, Ofsted have further accelerated their planned programme of inspection across Calcot’s children’s homes and schools. Following recent inspections, the first inspection report was published on 21 June and the children’s home was rated as inadequate. Ofsted has issued the home with compliance notices and it is restricted from taking more children until it can demonstrate it has improved the quality of care.
As some inspections are still in progress, I cannot say more on the outcomes at this time. However, three further homes have had restrictions imposed limiting the number of children they can care for. If Ofsted find widespread and systemic failings, they will not hesitate to issue a notice to suspend the registration of the home and consider serving a notice to cancel the registration of the home if necessary. This action would be taken if Ofsted considered that the children were not safe and if they did not have confidence that the provider could make appropriate and sufficient changes quickly enough.
The safeguarding of the children in our collective care remains paramount and as these inspections progress Ofsted will update the Department, and both will continue to work with placing local authorities to ensure that appropriate and proportionate action is taken to safeguard children.
With regards to the three independent schools run by Calcot, the Department is working with the inspectorates to ensure they are meeting the independent school standards and keeping their children safe.
Independent schools should meet all of the independent school standards at all times. Where any school has serious failings or failings for an extended period of time, the Department may consider whether enforcement action is appropriate under its published regulatory and enforcement policy action, which can be found at the following link:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/attachment_ data/file/809551/Ind_schools _enforcement_ policy_statement_post_consultation_13061
Separately, in January, the Education Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), agreed that the independent Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel should undertake a national review into safeguarding children with disabilities and complex health needs in residential settings. It will ask some important questions about how children with disabilities are safeguarded. Most importantly, it will seek to identify ways in which practice and policy might need to change to protect children better in the future.
We will consider all this information together with the findings from the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care and Competition and Market’s Authority market study, to inform our implementation strategy, due to be published later this year.
[HCWS144]
SEND: Carshalton and Wallington
Will Quince Excerpts(2 years, 6 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Will Quince)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) for securing this important debate on special educational needs in his constituency of Carshalton and Wallington, and the London Borough of Sutton more generally.
I will start by saying that I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend when he says that every child deserves access to a good education—in fact, I would go further and say a world-class education. It concerns me greatly to hear how many parents in his constituency are having to fight the system just to get their child or young person the support they deserve. That is not right, and I will say more about how we plan to change the system, in particular the adversarial nature of it, which he pointed out.
My hon. Friend raised the poor implementation of the 2014 reforms in Sutton. He is right to do so, though it is sadly not an issue that is exclusive to Sutton. I will come on to that in a moment. He also referred to the work of local mum Hayley Harding, who is inspirational. I have had the pleasure of meeting her, and join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to her for the important work she does in supporting other parents and campaigning for change in this area. I can assure my hon. Friend that I have listened. I hope that the SEND Green Paper, which I will come to in a few moments, reflects that listening exercise.
My hon. Friend talked of the struggle to get education, health and care plans. He is right to raise that point, and I will say more in a moment about our proposed changes as part of the review. He concluded with a number of important questions about the SEND review and the Green Paper, which I will now address. Before I do that, though not wanting to embarrass my hon. Friend, I will say this. It is important that his constituents know how hard, and how passionately, he has campaigned on this issue. To be frank, I cannot walk down a corridor in Westminster and pass my hon. Friend without him raising either a local SEND case or this issue more generally. I appreciate that I am biased on the issue, but in my view a council’s greatest responsibility is to its children, particularly the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, which is why his testimony about Sutton depresses me greatly. We need to change the system.
I know how hard my hon. Friend works to ensure that every child in his constituency—as well as children across Sutton more generally, when he works with other MPs—has access to the world-class education they deserve. I commit myself to continuing to work with him to hold Sutton Council to account and to ensure that it treats the education of vulnerable and disadvantaged children as seriously as he does, and indeed I do.
Let me turn to the specific points and questions that my hon. Friend raised. First, I will cover funding. Although my hon. Friend, and indeed parents, will want to hear more about our ambitious plans for reform of SEND and alternative provision more generally in the Green Paper, I am conscious of the fact that they will also be concerned about the here and now, especially if they have children with SEND who are in the education system. Importantly, we are increasing the high-needs budget for children and young people with the most complex needs by £1 billion this year, 2022-23. That brings it to a total investment of £9.1 billion. That unprecedented increase comes on top of a £1.5 billion increase over the past two years.
Let me turn specifically to the London Borough of Sutton, which will attract an increase of 12.5% per head of its two-to-18 population this year, compared with the previous financial year’s allocation. That brings its total high-needs funding allocation for 2022-23 to £52.6 million. Alongside that is our capital investment programme. We very much recognise the need for more special school places, so we have secured £2.6 billion to build or create around 33,000 additional SEND places. We are pump-priming that by investing early, so £1.4 billion of that allocation will be spent this year. Although we do not have exact figures for Sutton, I am conscious of the fact that there is a need for special places across London. I will be able to update my hon. Friend at a later date as to those plans.
Let me turn to the SEND review and the Green Paper. I will briefly touch on why those reforms are so desperately needed. My hon. Friend has set out many of the reasons for them, but they are first about outcomes, which are just not acceptable at present. It is not acceptable that we have so many children and young people with SEND who are falling behind their peers.
When I meet with parents and carers, and with children and young people with SEND, they tell me that, too often, they feel unsupported by the system, locally and nationally and, as my hon. Friend mentioned, too many parents feel that they have to fight, fight and fight just to get their child or children the education and support they deserve. They tell me that the system is too adversarial, and that that is not helped by the culture in local authorities, which my hon. Friend mentioned in relation to Sutton, especially when it comes to tribunals, as he pointed out.
I am told of a lack of SEND support in mainstream settings, of needs not being identified and met early enough, of a postcode lottery and, as we know, of significant local authority deficits. There is a lack of join-up between local health systems and the education system, as well as insufficient clarity about what parents and children should be entitled to. As my hon. Friend pointed out, there are poor accountability and redress mechanisms in the system, which means that parents feel powerless.
All the above and more are why the Government committed themselves to the SEND review in September 2019. Despite a delay largely caused by the pandemic, the Green Paper was published in the first quarter of this year. The consultation is now live, and we have extended the deadline for submissions to 22 July. I would encourage everyone to take part. Although we have set out a clear plan, and aspiration and ambition, we need those with lived experience and experience of SEND up and down our country to take part and ensure that we get it right.
Given the negative experiences of his constituents and the issues that he, and indeed I, set out, my hon. Friend rightly asked how the Green Paper and the review will bring about the change we all desperately want to see. My aim is to create a more inclusive education system, with excellent local mainstream provision, that will improve the experience and outcome for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities and, importantly, those who need alternative provision.
How do we intend to achieve this? At its heart, it is about ensuring every child gets the right support, in the right place, at the right time, tailored to their individual needs. We will establish a single national SEND and alternative provision system, setting out clear standards that will be underpinned by the introduction of a national framework. We will provide targeted support for children and young people, where required. Using that £2.6 billion, we will make available excellent specialist provision and alternative provision support for those children who have more complex needs.
We will set out clear roles, responsibilities and accountability measures. We will standardise and digitise EHCPs, making them more accessible to parents and those who advocate for and support them. We will strengthen mediation arrangements so that individuals can work through disagreements with their local authorities at an earlier stage, trying to take the adversarial nature out of the system.
We will establish new SEND partnerships at a local level that will require local areas to co-produce an inclusion plan with parents locally. We will introduce new local and national inclusion dashboards that will strengthen accountability and transparency.
Importantly, we will improve initial teacher training, as every teacher teaches children or young people with SEND, but many tell me that they do not feel confident in that role. If we are to identify early and get children and young people the support they need as early as possible, that starts with highly skilled teachers who have the confidence to teach those with SEND. To help us with that, we will introduce a new SEND national professional qualification.
As I mentioned, these plans are backed up by our £2.6 billion capital investment programme and by learning from the lessons of the 2014 reforms. The ambition and aspiration of the 2014 reforms were right, but sadly the implementation was poor, as evidenced by my hon. Friend. We know that the implementation in Sutton was nowhere near as good as it should have been. Sadly, we see that replicated in other local authorities up and down the country. That is why we are determined to get implementation right as part of these reforms, and we are investing an additional £70 million specifically for implementation. It is important to repeat that the consultation is now open and live until 22 July. I encourage as many people as possible to take part, and it is available on gov.uk.
Finally, my hon. Friend rightly focused on accountability, especially by local authorities. With the support of the Department of Health and Social Care, we have commissioned the Care Quality Commission and Ofsted to develop a new area SEND inspection framework, which will be launched in early 2023. Its overarching aim is to give a greater role to the views and experiences of children and young people with SEND, their parents and carers. The public consultation for that is also currently live and can be found online or through Ofsted.
In closing, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington for his support for this incredibly important agenda. He has raised important concerns, and I hope he knows that I and the Government are not just dedicated but determined to continue to listen to children and young people with SEND, their parents, their carers and all those who advocate for them in the system. I hope my hon. Friend feels assured that the work is under way and that he feels confident that we are committed to delivering changes within the SEND system, both locally and nationally, so that every child and young person across our country, regardless of the challenges they face, is able to achieve their full potential.
Question put and agreed to.