Asked by: Ian Sollom (Liberal Democrat - St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many meetings her Department has held with commercial lenders to discuss the finances of higher education institutions in each year since 2020.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department meets regularly with a variety of stakeholders to hear their views on the English higher education sector. This includes commercial lenders, given that the sector’s external borrowing totalled £13.3 billion in 2023/24.
Asked by: Ian Sollom (Liberal Democrat - St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, for what reason her Department holds meetings with commercial lenders to discuss the finances of higher education institutions.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department meets regularly with a variety of stakeholders to hear their views on the English higher education sector. This includes commercial lenders, given that the sector’s external borrowing totalled £13.3 billion in 2023/24.
Asked by: Ian Sollom (Liberal Democrat - St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department keeps records of meetings with commercial lenders on the finances of higher education institutions.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department meets regularly with a variety of stakeholders to hear their views on the English higher education sector. This includes commercial lenders, given that the sector’s external borrowing totalled £13.3 billion in 2023/24.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the independent report entitled Independent review of children's social care: final report, published on 23 May 2022, how much of the recommended new spending of £2.6 billion has been allocated to date.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government is driving the biggest transformation of children’s social care in a generation. Long-term investment is essential to shift the system away from high-cost crisis responses towards earlier support.
In 2025/26, the department more than doubled direct investment in children’s social care prevention services through the Children’s Social Care Prevention Grant. Now we are going even further to reform children’s social care. We are continuing the £523 million available for the Families First Partnership programme in 2025/26 for each year of the Local Government Finance Settlement to 2028/29. We have invested a further £300 million over two years (2026/27 and 2027/28) from the Transformation Fund announced at the Spending Review, and £547 million of new funding announced in the Local Government Funding Policy Statement, meaning £2.4 billion over three years, all ringfenced for prevention and de-escalation. Together this will help to reduce reliance on costly acute services, strengthen earlier intervention and drive forward reforms to children’s social care.
We are also investing £560 million capital funding to refurbish and expand children’s homes and provide more high-quality foster care placements.
Additional funding beyond 2027/28 is subject to the next Spending Review.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much funding her Department has committed to implement the recommendations of the Independent review of children's social care: final report, published on 23 May 2022, in each of the next five years.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government is driving the biggest transformation of children’s social care in a generation. Long-term investment is essential to shift the system away from high-cost crisis responses towards earlier support.
In 2025/26, the department more than doubled direct investment in children’s social care prevention services through the Children’s Social Care Prevention Grant. Now we are going even further to reform children’s social care. We are continuing the £523 million available for the Families First Partnership programme in 2025/26 for each year of the Local Government Finance Settlement to 2028/29. We have invested a further £300 million over two years (2026/27 and 2027/28) from the Transformation Fund announced at the Spending Review, and £547 million of new funding announced in the Local Government Funding Policy Statement, meaning £2.4 billion over three years, all ringfenced for prevention and de-escalation. Together this will help to reduce reliance on costly acute services, strengthen earlier intervention and drive forward reforms to children’s social care.
We are also investing £560 million capital funding to refurbish and expand children’s homes and provide more high-quality foster care placements.
Additional funding beyond 2027/28 is subject to the next Spending Review.
Asked by: Sarah Pochin (Reform UK - Runcorn and Helsby)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to introduce a mandatory registration of staff working in children's homes.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government set out its position regarding professional registration of the children’s homes workforce in its ’Tackling child sexual abuse: progress update’, published on GOV.UK in April 2025 here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/tackling-child-sexual-abuse-progress-update.
The immediate focus is to develop workforce standards and review sector qualifications to ensure staff working in children’s homes are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to provide the best possible care, and have access to high quality continuing professional development.
This will provide the essential foundation for looking at the risks and benefits of a registration model for care staff, including a wider consultation in the longer term.
Asked by: Neil Duncan-Jordan (Labour - Poole)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will provide additional Ofsted funding to increase the frequency of (a) inspections and (b) unannounced inspections of early years settings.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
Giving young children the best start in life is the foundation of the government’s opportunity mission.
From April, the department is funding Ofsted to inspect all new early years providers within 18 months of opening and moving towards inspecting all providers at least once every four years, compared to the current six-year window. This means standards will be reviewed more regularly and parents will have more up-to-date information to help them choose the right setting for their child.
While Ofsted typically provides notice before an inspection, they can and do conduct inspections without prior notification, particularly when concerns have been raised about a setting. Between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025, there were 1,400 unannounced inspections (16%). We recognise the importance of unannounced inspections and they will continue.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of staff in her Department were promoted (a) in-grade and (b) to a higher grade in the last year broken down by (i) performance marking in the previous year and (ii) grade.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The table below shows the grade breakdown and proportions of promotions to a higher grade (excluding temporary promotions) between November 2025 and October 2025. Please note: The promotion counts shown are based on internal departmental staff who were promoted to a higher grade within the department between November 2024 and October 2025. These figures exclude individuals who joined the department on promotion and those who left on promotion to another department, as this information is not captured in our central HR systems.
Since 2019 the flexible performance management framework has enabled departments to adopt a performance management approach which best suits their organisational and cultural needs. There is no common performance rating across government. The department does not currently operate a performance management system that includes performance markings. However, it is in the process of introducing ratings for its Senior Civil Servants, with ratings for the 2025/26 performance year due to be determined in Spring 2026.
Grade* | Average headcount | Count of those promoted to grade | Proportion of roles filled by internal candidates on promotion (%)** |
EO | 655 | <30 | - |
HEO | 1,488 | 95 | 6 |
SEO | 2,342 | 202 | 9 |
Grade 7 | 2,229 | 129 | 6 |
Grade 6 | 905 | 44 | 5 |
Deputy Director | 206 | <30 | - |
Director | 46 | <30 | - |
Total | 8,026 | 482 | 6 |
Data has been suppressed where there are fewer than 30 employees.
*The grade displayed in the table represents the grade to which staff were promoted.
** The percentage scores in the table represent the number of promotions to each higher grade between November 2024 and October 2025, expressed as a proportion of the average headcount for that higher grade during the same period.
Asked by: Joe Robertson (Conservative - Isle of Wight East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of additional revenue raised by freezing student loan repayment thresholds.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
At the Autumn Budget 2025, the government announced the repayment threshold for Plan 2 student loans will be frozen at £29,385 for three years from April 2027.
This measure is currently forecast to generate additional revenue of £54 million in the 2027/28 financial year, £93 million in 2028/29, £115 million in 2029/30 and £90 million in 2030/31. This reflects an expected increase in the value of Plan 2 student loan repayments compared to if the threshold had been allowed to increase by inflation.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many state-funded schools in England have a knife arch installed, broken down by region.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The department does not hold data on how many schools in England have installed a knife arch.