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Written Question
Special Educational Needs
Monday 25th March 2024

Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that local authorities are more involved in the delivery of (a) education and (b) health services for children with SEND.

Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

Local authorities already have existing statutory responsibilities to develop, publish and review the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) local offer, to ensure that the range of provision and services available in their local area are sufficient and well suited to the needs of children with SEND.

In the SEND and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan, the department have committed to establishing new local SEND and AP partnerships, convened by the local authority, that will bring together local partners to strategically plan and commission support for children and young people with SEND and AP. SEND and AP partnerships are a collaborative network of individuals, including health commissioners and education providers, who are working together to strategically plan SEND services. They will be underpinned by strengthened accountabilities and improved use of data for all those responsible for local delivery.

Moreover, the department has established a steering group to oversee a joint Department for Education and Department of Health and Social Care approach to SEND workforce planning. This feeds into the National SEND and AP Implementation Board and aims to be complete by 2025. The work will build on the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan published in June 2023, which sets out the steps the NHS and its partners need to take to deliver an NHS workforce that meets the changing needs of the population over the next 15 years.

The Improvement Plan also committed to the Change Programme which was launched in September 2023, and is testing key SEND and AP reforms with 32 local authorities in each of the 9 regions. The department, working with its Delivery Partner, Reaching Excellence and Ambition for all Children (REACh), are providing these local authorities with ‘boots on the ground’ support for the testing of these reforms. We are also running a live feedback loop that is providing early insights into how the reforms and supporting documents are working and identifying required changes.


Written Question
Schools: Bullying
Monday 25th March 2024

Asked by: Baroness Sherlock (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what data they collect on the religious identity of children who are bullied in schools.

Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

The department does not hold information on the religious identity of children that are bullied in schools.

The ‘National behaviour survey’ publishes data on a number of behaviour related topics, including bullying. The latest report, based on data from 2021/22, stated that 3% of those surveyed, who said they had been bullied, said it was due to their religion or belief. The ‘National behaviour survey’ can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/64809defb32b9e0012a963ce/National_Behaviour_Survey_academic_year_2021_to_22_report.pdf.

The department is providing over £3 million of funding, between 10 August 2021 and 31 March 2024, to five anti-bullying organisations to support schools to tackle bullying. This includes projects targeting bullying of particular groups, such as those who are victims of hate-related bullying.


Written Question
Arts: Education
Monday 25th March 2024

Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking with schools to (a) promote creativity and (b) make pupils aware of career opportunities in the arts and creative industries.

Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)

The department is clear that all pupils should be taught a broad and balanced curriculum, and all state-funded schools are required to promote pupils' cultural development. The best schools combine creative subjects with core subjects, and the department is committed to ensuring that all pupils have access to both.

Cultural education is integral to a high-quality education. Alongside drama as part of the English curriculum, and dance as part of the physical education curriculum, music, art and design, remain important pillars of the knowledge-rich national curriculum.

The department has committed over £714 million of funding from 2016/22 into a diverse portfolio of music and arts education programmes to ensure all children, whatever their background, have access to a high-quality education in music and arts. Over and above core school funding, the department will continue to invest around £115 million per year in cultural education up to 2025.

The department funds The Careers & Enterprise Company (CEC) to support schools and colleges to deliver high-quality careers programmes that help make young people aware of a range of career opportunities, including in the arts and creative industries.

CEC has supported the Discover Creative Careers programme from its inception in 2019. Over 1,000 creative sector employers have engaged with the programme, leading to 92,000 student interactions with the industry. Supported by funding from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Discover Creative Careers Programme will continue to run until March 2025. Discover Creative Careers Week 2023 saw nearly 5,000 in-person industry encounters and over 9,000 virtual encounters for young people.

CEC connects business and sector bodies with schools and colleges through a national network of Careers Hubs, Enterprise Advisors and Cornerstone Employers, including Creative UK, Pinewood Studios and Creative Assembly. The Berkshire Careers Hub works closely with Resource Productions. A recent example of their work involved facilitating a networking event to support Enterprise Advisers (employer volunteers) to work with local schools and colleges throughout the area. Their website can be found here: https://www.resource-productions.co.uk/.

Young people can access information on a range of digital tools and resources through the National Careers Service website. More than 800 profiles include jobs such as editorial assistant, music therapist and screenwriter within the creative and media sectors. The National Careers Service website can be found here: https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/explore-careers.


Written Question
Punjabi Language: GCSE
Monday 25th March 2024

Asked by: Baroness Sherlock (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many students received a Panjabi GCSE in each of the past 10 years; and of those, how many were taught Panjabi in state schools.

Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

The number of students who entered and received a Panjabi GCSE (9-1/A*-G) at the end of key stage 4 for the last 10 years in all schools and all state-funded schools can be found in the attached table.


Written Question
Schools: Finance
Monday 25th March 2024

Asked by: Derek Thomas (Conservative - St Ives)

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 allocating a portion of the savings in direct schools grants from home education to local authorities to provide exam centres.

Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)

The department allocates school funding to local authorities through the dedicated schools grant, on the basis of pupil numbers in the preceding autumn census. That some children are home educated does not, therefore, lead to unallocated funding. The department does not have current plans to fund exam centres for children who are home educated, but all funding is kept under careful review. Local authorities do have some flexibility to support children and young people who are home educated.


Written Question
Education: Autism
Monday 25th March 2024

Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of average waiting times for autism assessments on educational attainment.

Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

The government recognises that there can be long waits for autism assessments. The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is taking steps to improve access to assessments for autism. In 2023/24 DHSC allocated £4.2 million to improve services for autistic children and young people including assessments, pre-and post-diagnostic support, and the continuation of the Autism in Schools programme. Additionally, in April 2023, NHS England published a national framework to support the local NHS to commission and deliver autism assessment services for children, young people, and adults.

The Department for Education wants all children and young people to be able to reach their full potential and receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life. The SEND Code of Practice is clear that meeting the needs of a child with SEND does not require a diagnostic label or assessment. Instead, the department expects teachers to monitor the progress of all children and young people and put support in place where needed, including arranging diagnostic tests where appropriate.

The 2023 SEND and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan set out the department’s vision to improve mainstream education through setting standards for early and accurate identification of need, and timely access to support to meet those needs. The standards will clarify the types of support that should be ordinarily available in mainstream settings and practitioner standards will be developed to support frontline professionals, including one on autism.

The department’s Universal Services contract brings together SEND-specific continuing professional development and support for the school and further education workforce to improve outcomes for children and young people, including those with autism, through one programme, which aims to reach 70% of schools and colleges in England per year.

The contract offers autism awareness training and resources: over 135,000 professionals have undertaken autism awareness training provided by the Autism Education Trust through the programme's train the trainer model.


Written Question
Internet: Young People
Monday 25th March 2024

Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she plans to take to help (a) educate young people about the dangers of internet use and (b) prevent engagement in harmful online activities by young people.

Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)

As part of the statutory relationships and health education in primary schools and relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) in secondary schools, pupils are taught about online safety and harms. This includes being taught about what positive, healthy and respectful online relationships look like, the effects of their online actions on others, how to recognise and display respectful behaviour online, and where to get help and support for issues that occur online. The government’s guidance for primary and secondary school teaching on relationships, sex and health education can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/relationships-education-relationships-and-sex-education-rse-and-health-education/relationships-education-primary and: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/relationships-education-relationships-and-sex-education-rse-and-health-education/relationships-and-sex-education-rse-secondary.

The department has updated the Teaching Online Safety in Schools non-statutory guidance (2023), on how to teach about all aspects of internet safety in a coordinated and coherent way across their curriculum. Teaching about online safety also complements the computing curriculum, which covers the principles of online safety at all key stages, with progression in the content to reflect the different and escalating risks that pupils face. The computing curriculum can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-computing-programmes-of-study.

The statutory ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’ guidance, which all schools and colleges must have regard to when drawing up and implementing their own safeguarding policies, has been strengthened with regards to online safety in recent years. Governing bodies and proprietors should ensure online safety is a running and interrelated theme whilst devising and implementing their whole school or college approach to safeguarding and related policies and procedures. This includes doing all that they reasonably can to limit children’s exposure to the harmful online content on the school’s or college’s IT system.

The department has brought forward the review of the RSHE curriculum and statutory guidance. Stakeholders will have the opportunity to feed into the process through a thorough consultation. Following the consultation, the department will make a decision about any new content to be included in the RSHE curriculum. The department expects to publish the revised guidance soon after.


Written Question
Pupils: Per Capita Costs
Monday 25th March 2024

Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will publish the average condition funding required per pupil by local authority.

Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)

Responsibility for keeping buildings safe and well-maintained lies with schools and their responsible bodies, such as local authorities, academy trusts and voluntary-aided bodies. The department supports these bodies by providing capital funding, delivering major rebuilding programmes, and offering guidance and support.

The department has allocated over £15 billion since 2015 for keeping schools safe and operational, including £1.8 billion in the 2023/24 financial year. The department’s aim for condition funding is that responsible bodies receive a fair share of the available budget that takes account of their relative condition need. The department uses consistent data on the condition of the school estate to inform the allocation of funding. This means that the department targets more funding to where it is needed most, with schools in relatively poorer condition attracting more funding for their responsible body. It is then up to responsible bodies to use their local knowledge of priorities to target this investment.

This government introduced the Condition Data Collection (CDC), the first ever comprehensive survey of the school estate and one of the largest data collection programmes of its kind in Europe. Thanks to the department’s evidence led approach, following the James Review of Capital in 2011, this government has been able to allocate capital funding based on consistent data on condition need. Almost all government funded schools in England were visited as part of CDC during 2017 to 2019. As part of this, surveyors and engineers assessed the condition of multiple building and land components. This data was then used to estimate the remediation cost to bring all building components back to new or performing as intended. More information is available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/60af7cbbe90e071b54214c82/Condition_of_School_Buildings_Survey_CDC1_-_key_findings_report.pdf. This includes a regional breakdown of condition need.

CDC uses floor area of buildings rather than pupil numbers as a consistent approach to assessing buildings, alongside data on the condition of buildings. This is the approach also used in CDC2, the successor programme to CDC, which is underway and is due to complete in 2026. The average floor area per pupil varies depending on several factors, including the phase of education and type of school. Therefore, this is not an estimate that the department makes.


Written Question
Department for Education: Defamation
Monday 25th March 2024

Asked by: Bridget Phillipson (Labour - Houghton and Sunderland South)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to paragraphs 7.16 and 7.17 of the Ministerial Code, on how many occasions Ministers in her Department have informed the Law Officers that they are the defendants in a libel action in (a) their personal capacity, (b) their official position and (c) both since 19 December 2019.

Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)

I am unable to confirm the details asked for, as this would contravene paragraph 2.13 of the Ministerial Code, which prevents disclosure of the fact that the Law Officers have advised or have not advised and the content of their advice without their authority.


Written Question
Schools: Buildings
Monday 25th March 2024

Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will have discussions with (a) responsible bodies and (b) local authorities on their school estate management capability.

Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)

Responsibility for keeping buildings safe and well-maintained lies with schools and their responsible bodies, such as local authorities, academy trusts and voluntary-aided bodies. The department supports these bodies by providing capital funding, delivering major rebuilding programmes, and offering guidance and support.

Ministers have regular conversations with schools and their responsible bodies about school buildings and the management of their estates. Departmental officials also have regular conversations about estate management capability with organisations representing responsible bodies, as well as school estate management professionals with day-to-day experience managing their school estates to develop and improve the support the department offers.

The department regularly reminds responsible bodies of their legal duty to keep their buildings safe and maintain them in good order. Last year, the department updated the Academy Trust Handbook, adding a requirement for accounting officers to confirm that they are managing their estates in line with their existing responsibilities, as well as signposting to further guidance.

The department provides guidance, tools and support to help schools and responsible bodies effectively manage their school buildings and keep them safe, including the good estate management for schools (GEMS) guidance, which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/good-estate-management-for-schools. In addition, the Capital Advisers Programme is providing direct support to help academy trusts improve their estate management, by offering best practice recommendations from experienced technical advisers, in line with GEMS.