Asked by: Yuan Yang (Labour - Earley and Woodley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of the (a) pay and (b) other conditions of teaching assistants in schools.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
Teaching assistants play a vital role in children’s education.
Most school support staff, including teaching assistants, are currently employed on National Joint Council (NJC) for local government services pay and conditions. The NJC is a negotiating body made up of representatives from trade unions and local government employers. Local government employees covered by the NJC for local government services pay and conditions were offered a flat cash uplift of £1,290 from 1 April 2024. In October 2024 an agreement was reached on the 2024/25 pay award for these employees, which covers the period 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025.
This government values and recognises the professionalism of the entire school workforce, which is why the department is reinstating the School Support Staff Negotiating Body (SSSNB) through the Employment Rights Bill, introduced in Parliament on 10 October 2024.
The SSSNB will mean that employers and employee representatives come together to negotiate terms and conditions, and pay for school support staff, to ensure that support staff are properly recognised and rewarded for the work they do. The SSSNB will also be tasked with establishing a national terms and conditions handbook and advising on suitable training and career progression routes that recognise the varied and vital roles support staff undertake.
The SSSNB will give a voice to support staff, who make up roughly half of the school workforce, but are currently employed on terms and conditions negotiated by a wider framework for local government employees rather than a school specific body.
It will help address the recruitment and retention challenges state-funded schools are facing for support staff. This in turn will support work to drive high and rising standards in schools and ensure we give children the best possible life chances.
Asked by: Yuan Yang (Labour - Earley and Woodley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of amending the three years eligibility period for home fees for (a) UK nationals returning from abroad and (b) British Nationals Overseas passport-holders.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
To qualify for home fee status in England, a person must have settled status or ’a recognised connection’ to the UK, and in the case of persons with settled status, be ordinarily resident in the UK for three years.
UK nationals are settled in the UK once they return from abroad, and therefore qualify for home fee status and student finance once they have resided in the UK for three years prior to the start of their course.
The three year lawful residence rule is a long established feature of the student support system. It applies irrespective of nationality or country of origin, and it applies to all the eligibility categories in the Student Support Regulations with the exception of those with a protection based need. It ensures that the support provided by the taxpayer is targeted at those who have a substantial and recent connection with the UK.
Hong Kong British National Overseas status holders qualify for home fee status and student finance once they have acquired settled status in the UK, which is usually after five years of residence. Most persons who acquire settled status in this way will automatically meet the three year ordinary residence requirement for student finance.