Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they expect to publish a white paper on special educational needs provision before the Parliamentary summer recess.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Minister for Women and Equalities)
This government’s ambition is that all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or in alternative provision receive the right support to succeed and thrive in their education and as they move into adult life.
The department is aware of the challenges in the current SEND system, and the government is urgently considering how it needs to be reformed. However, these are complex issues which need a considered approach to deliver sustainable change.
The department is working closely with experts on reforms, including appointing a strategic advisor for SEND, who is playing a key role in convening and engaging with the sector, including leaders, practitioners, children and families.
The department has also established an expert advisory group for inclusion to improve the mainstream education outcomes and experiences for children and young people with SEND, and a Neurodivergence Task and Finish Group to provide a shared understanding of what provision and support in mainstream educational settings should look like for neurodivergent children and young people within an inclusive system.
The department is working at pace to address these challenges and will be setting out our plans to do so in due course.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies Spending on special educational needs in England: something has to change, published on 10 December 2024, and in particular its findings on special educational needs debt within local authorities.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Minister for Women and Equalities)
The department is providing an increase of £1 billion for high needs budgets in England in the 2025/26 financial year. Total high needs funding for children and young people with complex special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) is over £12 billion in the 2025/26 financial year.
The department is providing the increase in high needs funding to help meet the increase in costs local authorities will be facing this financial year, as they in turn provide support to schools and colleges, and ultimately to children and young people with SEND.
Nevertheless, the government recognises that the rising costs of SEND provision are putting a strain on local government finances, and in particular, the impact of dedicated schools grant deficits on councils’ finances. In the Spending Review on 11 June, we confirmed that the Core Schools Budget, which includes funding for local authorities’ high needs budgets, will rise to £69.5 billion by 2028/29. We intend to set out plans for reforming the SEND system in further detail later this year. Our objective is to ensure that local authorities, schools and colleges can deliver high quality services for children and young people with SEND in a financially sustainable way.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to introduce a register of children outside of school.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
The government remains committed to legislating for a local authority registration system for children not in school, as well as placing a duty on local authorities to provide support to home educating families.
My hon. Friend, the Member for Meon Valley, introduced the Children Not in School (Registers, Support and Orders) Private Members’ Bill on 11 December 2023. The Bill’s Second Reading is scheduled for 15 March 2024. The government is working with her as she progresses her Bill.
In the meantime, the department continues to work with local authorities to improve their non-statutory registers; analyse local authority data from the voluntary elective home education and children missing collection to build a more accurate picture of the landscape.
The department has also held a consultation on revising its elective home education guidance for local authorities and parents. This consultation closed on 18 January 2024 and the department will publish its response and revised guidance in due course.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to providing additional resources to fund places for looked after children to boarding schools; and what assessment they have made, of any, of any benefits such children could gain from that process.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
The department launched the Broadening Educational Pathways programme in 2020 to increase the role of the independent and state-funded boarding sector in the education of looked-after children. The Royal National Children’s Springboard Foundation was appointed as a delivery partner, providing a placement brokerage service to ensure children are placed in schools best suited to support their educational attainment and personal wellbeing. In the ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’ implementation strategy, the department committed to further expansion of the programme and has subsequently extended the contract until September 2024 to further open up educational opportunities in boarding schools to even more children in and on the edge of care.
The department will continue, over the course of the contract, to work in partnership with the Royal National Children’s Springboard Foundation to understand the benefits to the children and young people placed by the programme, including the findings of formal research they have commissioned, from the University of Nottingham, on the outcomes for looked-after and vulnerable children attending boarding schools.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the report by Josh MacAlister The Independent Review of Children's Social Care, published in May 2022, what is their response to the recommendation that the Department for Education "should consider investing some of the free schools capital budget into a new wave of state boarding capacity"; and whether funding will be provided for new state boarding capacity within the free schools budget.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
The department published bold and ambitious plans to reform children’s social care on the 2 February 2023 through ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’. It sets out how the department will help families overcome challenges, keep children safe, and make sure children in care have stable loving homes, long-term loving relationships, and opportunities for a good life. Over the next two years, the department will address urgent issues facing children and families now and lay the foundations for whole system reform.
As set out in the government’s response to the Independent Review of Children's Social Care, the department has extended the Broadening Educational Pathways Programme to increase the number of children in care in independent and state boarding schools. The department will use the evidence generated from this to inform long-term ambitions for this programme.
The free schools programme is open to proposals offering boarding provision. Although no such proposals were received in the most recent round of free school applications, there are currently five open free schools that offer boarding, with at least a further three set to open in the future. Plans for future free school application rounds have not yet been developed and will be considered as part of a future spending review.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many looked after children were placed in boarding schools for the latest year for which figures are available, broken down by age.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
The department does not hold this information centrally. The department does hold information on the number of looked after children placed in residential schools. However, it is not possible to distinguish between boarding schools and other residential schools, such as residential special schools. Therefore, we are not able to provide the information requested overall or by age.
Figures on the overall number of looked after children in England placed in residential schools were published in the annual statistics release titled ‘Children looked after, including adoptions, 2021-22’. On 31 March 2022, there were 110 looked after children in these residential schools, which includes boarding schools and residential special schools. These annual statistics are available in the attached table.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have implemented the recommendations of the Save the Children 2016 report The Lost Boys; and if not, whether they plan to do so.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
The Lost Boys report recommended for the government to invest in the best early education and childcare provision.
Alongside setting high standards and requirements for all early years providers in the Early Years Foundation Stage framework, in March, the government announced the single biggest investment in childcare ever made in England, which means by 2027/28 this government expects to be spending more than £8 billion every year on the early years. This will result in an historic expansion of free childcare, with 15 free hours available for working parents of two-year-olds from April 2024, 15 free hours from nine months to the start of school available from September 2024, rising to 30 free hours from September 2025. From September, the hourly rates paid to providers to deliver free childcare for two-year-olds will increase by 30% from an average rate of £6 to £8. This represents a significant increase in funding for early years.
The government is also investing up to £180 million in workforce training, qualifications, expert guidance and targeted support for the early years sector, to support the learning and development of the youngest and most disadvantaged children. This includes the Professional Development Programme, phase 3, training up to 10,000 early years professionals and providing early years practitioners with training on communication and language, early mathematics and personal, social and emotional development.
Two-thirds of primary schools have benefitted from our investment in the Nuffield Early Language Intervention, improving the speech and language skills of an estimated 90,000 children in reception classes so far. Over 320,000 primary school children have been screened to identify those with language development difficulties. These children will receive targeted language support.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many care leavers were accepted onto undergraduate courses at higher education institutions in each of the last three years for which data are available, broken down by institution.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
Data on applications, offers, and acceptances for care leavers by institution is not held by the department. This information may be available from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS).
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many care leavers were made offers to attend a higher education institution in each of the last three years for which data are available, broken down by individual institution.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
Data on applications, offers, and acceptances for care leavers by institution is not held by the department. This information may be available from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS).
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many care leavers made applications to higher education institutions in each of the last three years for which data are available, broken down by individual institution.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
Data on applications, offers, and acceptances for care leavers by institution is not held by the department. This information may be available from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS).