Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the work of music education hubs.

The work of music education hubs is evaluated in an annual report by Birmingham City University and published by Arts Council England. The most recent report, attached, was published in October 2018. It shows that the hubs taught over 700,000 children to play a musical instrument, as part of whole class ensemble teaching, in 2016-17. The hubs provided individual lessons for over 157,000 children, lessons in small groups for over 238,000 children and lessons in larger groups for over 145,000 children. They also supported or delivered over 16,000 musical ensembles.

We are refreshing the National Plan for Music Education and, as part of this, we will be considering the roles of the music education hubs and how best their work should be evaluated.

Earlier this year, we announced additional funding for music education hubs, providing them with an extra £490,000 for 2018-19 and an additional £840,000 for 2019-20. The increases in funding recognise a range of pressures on hubs, including pressures linked to teacher pay. The department’s public consultation to gather evidence on the impact of increased contributions to the Teachers' Pension Scheme (TPS) for all TPS employers, which included the initial proposal to fund music education hubs for 2019-20, closed on 12 February 2019. Final funding decisions will be made in due course when consultation evidence has been reviewed. Funding for music education hubs beyond March 2020 is a matter for the forthcoming Spending Review.