Asked by: Mark Tami (Labour - Alyn and Deeside)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he has taken to ensure that Ofsted inspections of initial teacher training are consistent with previous inspections in (a) rigour and (b) even handedness.
Answered by Robin Walker
Ofsted are a non-ministerial government department who are independent and report directly to Parliament.
Ofsted held a public consultation on their revised Initial Teacher Education (ITE) inspection handbook, following work on the Initial Teacher Training (ITT) core content framework. This was published by the department in November 2019.
Department officials work regularly with Ofsted counterparts on Ofsted’s plans to deliver ITT inspections. The revised ITE inspection handbook found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/initial-teacher-education-ite-inspection-framework-and-handbook. This sets out that Ofsted inspectors will check that providers of ITT leading to Qualified Teacher Status, have incorporated the ITT Core Content Framework into their course offering.
Inspection provides assurance to the public and to government that:
Ofsted can be contacted directly through their home page at: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted.
Asked by: Martin Docherty-Hughes (Scottish National Party - West Dunbartonshire)
Question
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, when the Government plans to publish its action plan coordinating a year of domestic action on LGBT issues, in the run up to the global conference, Safe to be me: Global Equality Conference to be hosted in London in June 2022.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The UK government is committed to promoting equality for LGBT people at home and abroad and we continue to be recognised as one of the top 10 most progressive countries in Europe for LGBT rights.
Earlier this year, the Minister for Women and Equalities set out her top priorities, which we are making good progress towards delivering. We have launched a public consultation on our plans to ban conversion therapy; we are digitising the Gender Recognition Certificate application process, having already reduced the fee, and are improving healthcare for trans people; and the Department for Education recently announced over £1 million in funding to support schools and colleges to tackle all forms of bullying, including anti-LGBT bullying.
We have also appointed Iain Anderson as LGBT Business Champion, and the Prime Minister has appointed Lord Herbert as Special Envoy on LGBT rights, with both an international and domestic focus.
We look forward to hosting Safe To Be Me: A Global Equality Conference next year, which will bring together government representatives, businesses, civil society and international parliamentarians to address the safety of LGBT people at home and abroad.
Asked by: Christian Wakeford (Labour - Bury South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment his Department has made of the impact of the covid-19 outbreak on pupil behaviour (a) in schools and (b) at home.
Answered by Robin Walker
Attending school or college in person plays a central role in promoting well-being for pupils. The department is pursuing an ambitious programme of work to improve behaviour in schools and to improve the mental health and well-being of pupils and teachers.
The department’s £10 million behaviour hubs programme, launched in April, is projected to support more than 500 schools over 3 years. It will support schools to learn from the best in developing excellent behaviour cultures. In June 2021, the department also launched a call for evidence on managing good behaviour and how schools’ behaviour policies have changed in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. This evidence will be considered alongside a public consultation later this year on the Behaviour and Discipline in Schools guidance. The guidance will provide practical advice to schools about how to encourage good behaviour and respond effectively to incidents of poor behaviour in and out of the classroom and support staff in tackling behavioural issues that have arisen from COVID-19.
The department’s mental health and behaviour guidance for schools includes specific information about supporting pupils’ mental health and wellbeing: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mental-health-and-behaviour-in-schools--2. This is in addition to the £79 million to boost children and young people’s mental health support announced in March 2021, which will include increasing the number of Mental Health Support Teams in schools and colleges to around 400, covering an estimated 3 million children and young people by 2023.
To provide further support for staff dealing with children and young people experiencing additional pressures from the last year, including trauma, anxiety, or grief, the government announced the £7 million additional funding for local authorities to deliver Wellbeing for Education Recovery programme in May 2021. Alongside this, we are providing £9.5 million to train a Senior Mental Health lead in up to 7,800 schools and colleges in England in this academic year; and funding an adapted ‘Link’ programme which is designed to improve partnerships between health and education leaders in local areas.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of the delay in the publication of the SEND Review on the support for disabled children and their families in their home.
Answered by Vicky Ford
The Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Review is making good progress in identifying the reforms needed to improve support for children and young people with special educational needs and their families.
The COVID-19 outbreak has inevitably frustrated the pace of the review and has materially altered the context for reform. That is why we continue to listen and work with system leaders to get this right by drawing on the best evidence available.
The government remains committed to publishing proposals for public consultation that will give children with SEND greater opportunities to succeed, by fundamentally improving the way we deliver support.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department consulted functional skills qualifications professionals prior to taking the decision of April 2021 that functional skills qualifications should resume based on examination wherever possible while in line with covid-19 public health measures rather than using coursework and/or teacher assessed grades.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
The department and Ofqual launched a joint consultation in January 2021, seeking the views of teachers, students, parents, schools and colleges. We set out our proposals on exams and assessments for vocational and technical qualifications, including for Functional Skills qualifications, and the alternative arrangements that would be used where exams do not take place. We also conducted an equality impact assessment as part of the consultation. The majority of respondents agreed that all efforts should be made to allow learners to take a Functional Skills assessment, in line with public health measures or remotely. Where the learner is ready, but assessments cannot take place in centres on public health grounds, teacher assessed grades are available.
As set out in the consultation, the size, structure, assessment, and teaching practices of Functional Skills differ from other qualifications. Many are taken on-demand and by a wide range of learners including 16-19 year olds, adults and apprentices, in a wide range of contexts. Learners will take assessments when they are ready. This approach was designed to give the maximum opportunity to progress in learning or employment, as it allows learners to engage with live exams now or results based on teacher assessment where these are necessary and appropriate.
We recognise the challenges suffered by many students who will feel apprehensive about taking assessments and we are incredibly grateful for the tremendous efforts that teachers have made to continue to provide high quality education throughout the COVID-19 outbreak. Awarding organisations have long-established arrangements for mitigating the effect of issues such as those relating to mental health. This year, Ofqual has required awarding organisations to review those arrangements to ensure they are fit for purpose. Those students who are able to take assessments but are concerned about the impact of mental health affecting their performance should speak to their centres and awarding organisation to understand the special consideration process.
Additionally, remote invigilation has offered the opportunity to take assessments at home and some providers have reported that this has helped with anxiety. Together with Ofqual, we have supported the roll out of remote invigilation by awarding organisations to give more options to learners and centres for taking assessments. We have seen an increase in volumes of assessments taken via remote invigilation and also live assessments as settings have re-opened.
The department will monitor and review the impact of disruption to learning in vocational and technical qualifications (including Functional Skills qualifications) and General Qualifications (including GCSEs and A levels).
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the decision of April 2021 that assessment by examination should resume wherever possible while in line with covid-19 public health measures for functional skills qualifications (FSQ), what the evidential basis is that those students affected will be as able to receive grades that reflect their ability under normal circumstances; and what comparative assessment his Department has made of the effect of disruption to learning following the covid-19 outbreak on (a) those students studying for FSQs and (b) students studying for (i) vocational training qualifications, (ii) GCSEs and (iii) A Levels.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
The department and Ofqual launched a joint consultation in January 2021, seeking the views of teachers, students, parents, schools and colleges. We set out our proposals on exams and assessments for vocational and technical qualifications, including for Functional Skills qualifications, and the alternative arrangements that would be used where exams do not take place. We also conducted an equality impact assessment as part of the consultation. The majority of respondents agreed that all efforts should be made to allow learners to take a Functional Skills assessment, in line with public health measures or remotely. Where the learner is ready, but assessments cannot take place in centres on public health grounds, teacher assessed grades are available.
As set out in the consultation, the size, structure, assessment, and teaching practices of Functional Skills differ from other qualifications. Many are taken on-demand and by a wide range of learners including 16-19 year olds, adults and apprentices, in a wide range of contexts. Learners will take assessments when they are ready. This approach was designed to give the maximum opportunity to progress in learning or employment, as it allows learners to engage with live exams now or results based on teacher assessment where these are necessary and appropriate.
We recognise the challenges suffered by many students who will feel apprehensive about taking assessments and we are incredibly grateful for the tremendous efforts that teachers have made to continue to provide high quality education throughout the COVID-19 outbreak. Awarding organisations have long-established arrangements for mitigating the effect of issues such as those relating to mental health. This year, Ofqual has required awarding organisations to review those arrangements to ensure they are fit for purpose. Those students who are able to take assessments but are concerned about the impact of mental health affecting their performance should speak to their centres and awarding organisation to understand the special consideration process.
Additionally, remote invigilation has offered the opportunity to take assessments at home and some providers have reported that this has helped with anxiety. Together with Ofqual, we have supported the roll out of remote invigilation by awarding organisations to give more options to learners and centres for taking assessments. We have seen an increase in volumes of assessments taken via remote invigilation and also live assessments as settings have re-opened.
The department will monitor and review the impact of disruption to learning in vocational and technical qualifications (including Functional Skills qualifications) and General Qualifications (including GCSEs and A levels).
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the decision of April 2021 that functional skills qualifications should resume based on examination wherever possible while in line with covid-19 public health measures rather than using coursework and/or teacher assessed grades, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of that decision on the mental health of students affected, including those wishing to enter further or higher education based on those grades in autumn 2021.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
The department and Ofqual launched a joint consultation in January 2021, seeking the views of teachers, students, parents, schools and colleges. We set out our proposals on exams and assessments for vocational and technical qualifications, including for Functional Skills qualifications, and the alternative arrangements that would be used where exams do not take place. We also conducted an equality impact assessment as part of the consultation. The majority of respondents agreed that all efforts should be made to allow learners to take a Functional Skills assessment, in line with public health measures or remotely. Where the learner is ready, but assessments cannot take place in centres on public health grounds, teacher assessed grades are available.
As set out in the consultation, the size, structure, assessment, and teaching practices of Functional Skills differ from other qualifications. Many are taken on-demand and by a wide range of learners including 16-19 year olds, adults and apprentices, in a wide range of contexts. Learners will take assessments when they are ready. This approach was designed to give the maximum opportunity to progress in learning or employment, as it allows learners to engage with live exams now or results based on teacher assessment where these are necessary and appropriate.
We recognise the challenges suffered by many students who will feel apprehensive about taking assessments and we are incredibly grateful for the tremendous efforts that teachers have made to continue to provide high quality education throughout the COVID-19 outbreak. Awarding organisations have long-established arrangements for mitigating the effect of issues such as those relating to mental health. This year, Ofqual has required awarding organisations to review those arrangements to ensure they are fit for purpose. Those students who are able to take assessments but are concerned about the impact of mental health affecting their performance should speak to their centres and awarding organisation to understand the special consideration process.
Additionally, remote invigilation has offered the opportunity to take assessments at home and some providers have reported that this has helped with anxiety. Together with Ofqual, we have supported the roll out of remote invigilation by awarding organisations to give more options to learners and centres for taking assessments. We have seen an increase in volumes of assessments taken via remote invigilation and also live assessments as settings have re-opened.
The department will monitor and review the impact of disruption to learning in vocational and technical qualifications (including Functional Skills qualifications) and General Qualifications (including GCSEs and A levels).
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, for what reason his Department decided that functional skills qualifications should resume based on examination wherever possible while in line with covid-19 public health measures rather than coursework and/or teacher assessed grades as was decided for other qualifications and examinations that would have taken place in summer 2021.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
The department and Ofqual launched a joint consultation in January 2021, seeking the views of teachers, students, parents, schools and colleges. We set out our proposals on exams and assessments for vocational and technical qualifications, including for Functional Skills qualifications, and the alternative arrangements that would be used where exams do not take place. We also conducted an equality impact assessment as part of the consultation. The majority of respondents agreed that all efforts should be made to allow learners to take a Functional Skills assessment, in line with public health measures or remotely. Where the learner is ready, but assessments cannot take place in centres on public health grounds, teacher assessed grades are available.
As set out in the consultation, the size, structure, assessment, and teaching practices of Functional Skills differ from other qualifications. Many are taken on-demand and by a wide range of learners including 16-19 year olds, adults and apprentices, in a wide range of contexts. Learners will take assessments when they are ready. This approach was designed to give the maximum opportunity to progress in learning or employment, as it allows learners to engage with live exams now or results based on teacher assessment where these are necessary and appropriate.
We recognise the challenges suffered by many students who will feel apprehensive about taking assessments and we are incredibly grateful for the tremendous efforts that teachers have made to continue to provide high quality education throughout the COVID-19 outbreak. Awarding organisations have long-established arrangements for mitigating the effect of issues such as those relating to mental health. This year, Ofqual has required awarding organisations to review those arrangements to ensure they are fit for purpose. Those students who are able to take assessments but are concerned about the impact of mental health affecting their performance should speak to their centres and awarding organisation to understand the special consideration process.
Additionally, remote invigilation has offered the opportunity to take assessments at home and some providers have reported that this has helped with anxiety. Together with Ofqual, we have supported the roll out of remote invigilation by awarding organisations to give more options to learners and centres for taking assessments. We have seen an increase in volumes of assessments taken via remote invigilation and also live assessments as settings have re-opened.
The department will monitor and review the impact of disruption to learning in vocational and technical qualifications (including Functional Skills qualifications) and General Qualifications (including GCSEs and A levels).
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what (a) policies and (b) grant and funding programmes his Department has introduced to provide support to individuals and organisations in response to the covid-19 outbreak; and what funding has been allocated to each of those programmes in the 2020-21 financial year.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department is continuing to fund nurseries and schools as normal and provide 16-19 funding allocations to further education (FE) colleges as usual throughout the COVID-19 outbreak.
A) Policies
Schools
This has been a challenging time for teachers and school leaders, and the Government has supported them since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak. We have regularly published and updated guidance to ensure that it reflects the most up-to-date medical and scientific information to make sure that teachers, parents, and young people are as well informed as possible in the current rapidly changing circumstances. The latest guidance for schools is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/actions-for-schools-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak.
On 3 February 2021, the Government confirmed the appointment of Sir Kevan Collins as the education recovery commissioner. He will advise on the approach for education recovery, with a particular focus on helping students catch up on education lost because of the COVID-19 outbreak.
The Department will be working in collaboration with the education sector to develop short, medium, and long-term plans to make sure children and young people have the chance to make up their education over the course of this Parliament, further details will be made available in due course.
Vulnerable Children
During the period of national lockdown announced on 4 January 2021, primary, secondary, alternative provision, special schools, and FE colleges have remained open to vulnerable children and young people. We expected schools to offer a place to all vulnerable children. Those who are vulnerable include those who have a social worker, those with an education health and care plan or those who have been deemed to be otherwise vulnerable by local authorities or education providers.
Where vulnerable children and young people cannot attend education provision (including post-16), we have asked local authorities, schools, and colleges to ensure they have systems in place to keep in touch with them.
Throughout all restrictions to date, children’s social care services and early help services have continued to support vulnerable children and young people and their families. We will continue to ensure this is the case during this period of national restrictions.
Temporary secondary legislation was laid in April 2020 to support the delivery of services and allow local authorities to focus on child protection issues. As the COVID-19 outbreak continued and following public consultation, a small number of flexibilities from those regulations remained in place from 25 September 2020. These regulations are due to expire on 31 March 2021. A public consultation seeking views on extending the flexibilities for a further six months ran until 28 February 2021.
B) Grant and Funding Programmes
Early Years
We are funding nurseries as usual and all children are able to attend their nurseries in all parts of England. Where nurseries do see a drop in income from either parent-paid fees or income from the Department for Education, they are able to use the furlough scheme.
We will fund local authorities in the 2021 spring term based on their January 2021 census. If attendance rises after the census is taken, we will top-up councils to up to 85% of their January 2020 census level, where a local authority can provide evidence for increased attendance during the spring term. This will give local authorities additional financial confidence to pay providers for increasing attendance later in the spring term.
We have provided £5.3 million to existing early years voluntary and community sector (VCS) partners on the home learning environment and EYSEND to support disadvantaged early children’s development and well-being and early years providers to help children catch up and transition back into early education in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak.
We have invested £9 million on improving the language skills of reception age children who need it most this academic year. Working with the Education Endowment Foundation, we are providing training and resources for the Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI), free of charge, to schools that would particularly benefit.
In January 2021, we announced £18 million to support language development in the early years next academic year – £8 million to offer the NELI to many more schools and £10 million for a pre-reception early language catch up programme.
Schools and Catch up
The Government is providing a comprehensive package of support, including the £170 million Covid Winter Grant Scheme, enabling councils to support those families in need.
The Government announced a significant expansion of the Holiday Activities and Food Programme with funding of up to £220 million, reaching all local authority areas from Easter 2021.
Last year Edenred reported that over £380 million worth of voucher codes had been redeemed into supermarket eGift cards by schools and families through the scheme as of 19 August 2020.
Edenred also reported that over 20,350 schools placed orders for the scheme.
During the period of school opening restrictions, schools have continued to provide meal options for all pupils who are in school. Meals should be available free of charge to all infant pupils and pupils who are eligible for benefits-related free school meals who are in school. Schools are also continuing to provide free school meal support to pupils who are eligible for benefits-related free school meals and who are learning at home.
We have been providing £3.50 top-up funding per eligible pupil per week for schools providing lunch parcels and £15 per eligible child per week for vouchers. Extra costs incurred will be claimed retrospectively by schools and all valid claims will be paid in full.
In June 2020 we announced a catch-up package worth £1 billion, including a ‘Catch Up Premium’ worth a total of £650 million to support schools to make up for lost teaching time and £350m for the National Tutoring Programme.
In January 2021 we also committed to a further programme of catch up which will involve £300 million of new money to early years, schools and providers of 16-19 further education for high-quality tutoring.
The Government is investing over £400 million to support access to remote education and online social care services, including securing 1.3 million laptops and tablets for disadvantaged children and young people.
As of Monday 1 March, over 1.2 million laptops and tablets have been delivered to schools, trusts, local authorities, and further education colleges.
The Government has set out further measures to support education recovery in the written ministerial statement of Wednesday 24 February, which includes a new one-off £302 million Recovery Premium for state primary and secondary schools, building on the Pupil Premium, to further support pupils who need it most.
Further Education
16-19
Part of the skills recovery package included the high value courses for school and college leavers one year offer for 18- and 19-year-olds. This is to encourage and support delivery of selected Level 2 and 3 qualifications in specific subjects and sectors that enable a more productive economy and support young people to remain engaged with education, employment and training. This is a one-off intervention in response to the COVID-19 outbreak and supports 18- to 19-year-olds leaving school or college to find work in high-demand sectors like engineering, construction, and social care. We will provide £100 million to create more places on Level 2 and 3 courses for the 2020-21 academic year.
We are supporting the largest ever expansion of traineeships, providing an additional 30,000 places in the 2020-21 academic year, to ensure that more young people have access to high-quality training. To encourage this, we have introduced £1,000 incentive payments for employers who offer traineeship work placement opportunities between 1 September 2020 and 31 July 2021. As part of the Plan for Jobs, an additional £111 million has been made available for traineeships in the 2020-21 financial year.
The 16 to 19 tuition fund was set up to provide one-off funding, for the 2020-21 academic year only. We are providing £37 million to support the 16-19 tuition fund for the remainder of the 2020-21 academic year as part of the wider COVID-19 catch up package. This is ring fenced funding for schools, colleges and all other 16-19 providers to help mitigate the disruption to learning arising from COVID-19.
19+
We are continuing to invest in education and skills training for adults through the Adult Education Budget (AEB) £1.34 billion in 2020-21.
In response to COVID-19, we have introduced a change to the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) AEB Funding Rules for the 2020-21 academic year, to enable providers to use their learner support funds to purchase IT devices for students (aged 19+) and to help them meet students’ IT connectivity costs, where these costs are a barrier to accessing or continuing in their training.
Last year, due to COVID-19, we lowered the AEB reconciliation threshold for grant funded providers to 68%, based on provider’s average delivery during the 2019-20 academic year. In view of the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, including the transfer to remote education and the reduced attendance on-site with effect from 5 January, we are currently reviewing the end of year reconciliation position for 2020-21. Any changes to the published arrangements will be communicated in the ESFA’s Weekly Update (published on gov.uk) in due course.
We welcome my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s announcement of an additional £17 million in the 2020-21 financial year to support an increase in the number of sector-based work academy programme (SWAP) placements. In England, the pre-employment training element of SWAPs is generally funded by the Department for Education through the AEB, which in several regions is managed by the relevant mayoral combined authority (MCA).
In devolved areas, it is for MCAs (or the Greater London Authority) to determine funding arrangements for adult education for their residents.
Higher Education
We recognised that the COVID-19 outbreak would make this a challenging year for higher education (HE). This is why, alongside access to the business support schemes, we brought forward £2 billion+ worth of tuition fee payments, provided £280 million grant funding for research and established a loan scheme to cover up to 80% of a university’s income losses from international students for the academic year 2020-21 up to the value of their non-publicly funded research activity support research.
The Department has worked with the Office for Students (OfS) to clarify that universities are able to use existing funds, worth around £256 million for academic year 2020-21, towards hardship support. We are also making available an additional £50 million of hardship funding this financial year. In total we have made £70 million of funding available for student hardship including the £20 million made available to universities in December. Alongside this we have worked with the OfS to provide student space, which has been funded by up to £3 million by the OfS to support student mental health.
Apprenticeships
Following the COVID-19 outbreak, we introduced policy flexibilities to support apprentices and employers to continue with, and complete, their programmes and we encouraged providers and assessment organisations to deliver training and assessments flexibly, including remotely, to enable this. Our guidance provides further detail: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-apprenticeship-programme-response.
To help employers offer new apprenticeships, as part of the Government's Plan for Jobs, they are able to claim £2,000 for every apprentice they hire as a new employee under the age of 25, and £1,500 for new apprentices aged 25 and over between 1 August 2020 and 31 March 2021. Incentive payments are funded from the overall annual, apprenticeship budget. In the 2020-21 financial year, funding available for investment in apprenticeships in England is almost £2.5 billion, double what was spent in the 2010-11 financial year.
Vulnerable Children
The Government has provided £4.6 billion of funding to support councils through the COVID-19 outbreak, this is part of an unprecedented level of additional financial support in recent times. The Government has also allocated funding to children’s voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations. This funding aims to ensure charities can continue to provide services that safeguard vulnerable children and protect them from harm.
The Government has provided £40.8 million this year for the Family Fund to help over 80,000 low-income families who have children with disabilities or serious illnesses. This includes £13.5 million specifically in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Asked by: Barry Sheerman (Labour (Co-op) - Huddersfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support the Government will provide to (a) early years and (b) other childcare settings that have to close for safety reasons during the covid-19 outbreak; and what data his Department has collected on whether parents are withdrawing children from early years settings due to safety concerns.
Answered by Vicky Ford
During the COVID-19 outbreak, we have provided unprecedented support to the early years sector and other childcare settings by continuing to fund the free childcare entitlements, making grants and loans available, ensuring early years providers can access the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) for their non-government funded income and ensuring that childminders can access the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS). We continue to ensure that providers can access the support available.
On 17 December 2020, my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced that both the CJRS and SEISS will be extended to April 2021. We have also updated the CJRS guidance for early years so that all providers who have seen a drop in their overall income are able to furlough any staff (who were on payroll on or before 30 October) and who are not required for delivering the government’s funded entitlements: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-financial-support-for-education-early-years-and-childrens-social-care/coronavirus-covid-19-financial-support-for-education-early-years-and-childrens-social-care.
Where early years providers are struggling financially, they may be eligible to access support for the Additional Restrictions Grant (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/check-if-youre-eligible-for-the-coronavirus-additional-restrictions-grant) if not eligible for the Local Restrictions Support Grant schemes (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/check-if-youre-eligible-for-the-coronavirus-local-restrictions-support-grant-for-open-businesses).
We have worked in consultation with the early years sector in developing advice to support settings. Advice from Public Health England remains that the risk of transmission and infection is low if early years settings follow the system of controls, which reduce risks and create inherently safer environments.
The department is working closely with the Department for Health and Social Care and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to ensure rapid asymptomatic testing for all early years staff, to support the announcement made by my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister, on 4 January 2021 for early years settings to remain fully open during the current lockdown.
We regularly commission parent polls, conducted via Ipsos MORI, to assess parental intentions with regard to the use of early years childcare, the latest published parent poll stats from wave 5 in September 2020 are published here: https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/childcare-and-home-learning-families-0-4-year-olds-during-covid-19-0. Our most recent poll was conducted during the second lockdown in November and early December 2020. A further parent poll is due to be conducted in coming weeks. We will publish the results of these in due course.
We also stay in regular contact with the early years sector and regularly and closely monitor attendance within settings. We will keep under constant review whether further action is needed.