Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the level of regional variation in the proportion of initial teacher training places allocated to providers with an outstanding Ofsted rating in the last 12 months for which figures are available; and whether her Department plans to take such variation into account when assessing which providers will be given a multi-year allocation of initial teacher training places.

For the 2016/17 Initial Teacher Training (ITT) recruitment round, the Department operated a system of recruitment controls and not allocations. We continue to monitor daily the recruitment at a regional level and have the power to enact regional controls if we see a large disparity in recruitment for a region. A guide to the 2016/17 ITT recruitment round methodology can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/468099/ITT_recruitment_control_guidance_2016-17_v1.1.pdf

We are currently engaging the sector and working to establish the criteria for determining which providers will be designated as a ‘Centre of Excellence’ and receive multi-year allocations, but at this stage no firm decisions have been taken.