Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support he is providing to schools that require additional resources to remove asbestos from their premises.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Since 2015, the Department has allocated £6 billion to those responsible for school buildings and for essential maintenance and improvements, including removing or encapsulating asbestos when it is the safest course of action to do so. In addition, through the Priority School Building Programme, the Department is rebuilding or refurbishing buildings in the worst condition in over 500 schools across the country. Asbestos was a factor in selecting buildings for the programme.
Advice from the Health and Safety Executive is clear that if asbestos is unlikely to be damaged or disturbed, then it is best managed in situ. Although, the Department is also clear that when asbestos does pose a risk to safety and cannot be effectively managed in situ, then it should be removed. Schools and those responsible for school buildings receive building condition funding through different routes depending on their size and type and this should be used to address asbestos issues if materials cannot be safely managed in situ.
The Department published ‘Asbestos Management in Schools’ guidance in February 2017 to help local authorities, governing bodies and academy trusts to meet their legal duties and manage asbestos effectively. The Department also launched the Asbestos Management Assurance Process in March 2018 to help develop a more comprehensive understanding of asbestos management in the school estate.
Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing a voucher scheme to (a) cover in full or (b) subsidise the costs of school uniforms for children from households whose annual income is less than £16,000.
Answered by Nick Gibb
It is for the governing body of a school to decide whether there should be a school uniform policy and if so, what that should be.
In England, some local authorities (LAs) already provide discretionary grants to help with buying school uniforms. LAs that offer these grants set their own criteria for eligibility. Further, schools can also choose to use the pupil premium funding that they are allocated to help support their disadvantaged pupils to offer subsidies or grants for school uniform; this would be a decision for the school to make.
The cost of uniform should not act as a barrier to obtaining a good school place. All children should be able to attend a school of their parents’ choice wherever possible. No school uniform should be so expensive as to leave pupils or their families feeling unable to apply to, or attend, a school of their choice.
The Department’s best-practice guidance advises schools that, in setting their school uniform policy, they should give the highest priority to cost considerations and achieving value for money for parents. The guidance is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-uniform.
Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many apprenticeship places, broken down by the NVQ level of each place, have been supported by funds from the apprenticeship levy.
Answered by Anne Milton
The table below provides the number of levy supported apprenticeship starts by detailed apprenticeship level:
| Apprenticeship starts | |
Apprenticeship level | 2017/18 | 2018/19 |
2 | 71,430 | 20,180 |
3 | 81,820 | 25,830 |
4 | 11,450 | 4,520 |
5 | 12,620 | 4,370 |
6 | 5,450 | 3,710 |
7 | 3,270 | 2,740 |
Total | 186,000 | 61,400 |
Notes
1) Volumes are rounded to the nearest ten, or the nearest 100 for totals.
2) The data source is the Individualised Learner Record.
3) Levy-supported starts are those supported by levy-paying organisations using at least £1 of their own levy funds.
Please note that a level 2 apprenticeship is equivalent to NVQ level 2, a level 3 apprenticeship is equivalent to NVQ level 3 and so on. More information about equivalent qualification levels is available at https://www.gov.uk/what-different-qualification-levels-mean/list-of-qualification-levels.
Data for the 2017/18 academic year, and for the first quarter of the 2018/19 academic year (reported to date) were published alongside the ‘Further education and skills: November 2018’ and ‘Apprenticeship and traineeships release: January 2019’ statistics publications, available respectively at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/further-education-and-skills-november-2018.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/apprenticeships-and-traineeships-january-2019.
Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, which service providers are contracted to carry out third party cleaning contracts for his (a) Department and (b) executive agencies; if he will list all of the services delivered by third party contractors to his (i) Department and (ii) executive agencies; and how many people working for those third party contractors are paid less than the Living Wage as defined by the Living Wage Foundation.
Answered by Anne Milton
Cleaning services in buildings managed by the department are undertaken by outsourced providers, OCS and Sodexo, as part of large facilities management service contracts. The cleaning of Cheylesmore House, occupied by the Standards and Testing Agency and the Teaching Regulation Agency, is undertaken by Engie.
A list of all services delivered by third party contractors to the department is not held in a centralised location and the information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Rates of pay for people working for third party contractors are determined by their respective employers and not held by the department. All outsourced providers are required to pay, as a minimum, either the National Minimum Wage or the National Living Wage.
Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent estimate he has made of the potential additional cost to the public purse of extending free school meals to households in receipt of working tax credit who meet the income threshold currently used to determine eligibility for households not in receipt of working tax credit.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
We do not routinely collect or publish data on families in receipt of working tax credit with earnings below the threshold for free school meals eligibility,
The department does not have any plans to extend free school meals entitlement to families in receipt of working tax credit and therefore have not made an assessment of the potential additional costs or benefits of extending free school meals to those households in receipt of working tax credit who meet the earned income threshold.
Working tax credit, alongside other legacy benefits are being phased out and replaced by Universal Credit. As families move from working tax credit onto Universal Credit, those with incomes below the earned income threshold of £7,400 per annum will benefit through becoming eligible to receive free school meals.
Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many children are ineligible for free school meals as a result of their household, meeting the income threshold but is in receipt of working tax credit.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
We do not routinely collect or publish data on families in receipt of working tax credit with earnings below the threshold for free school meals eligibility,
The department does not have any plans to extend free school meals entitlement to families in receipt of working tax credit and therefore have not made an assessment of the potential additional costs or benefits of extending free school meals to those households in receipt of working tax credit who meet the earned income threshold.
Working tax credit, alongside other legacy benefits are being phased out and replaced by Universal Credit. As families move from working tax credit onto Universal Credit, those with incomes below the earned income threshold of £7,400 per annum will benefit through becoming eligible to receive free school meals.
Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the potential merits of extending free school meal eligibility to children in households in receipt of working tax credit.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
We do not routinely collect or publish data on families in receipt of working tax credit with earnings below the threshold for free school meals eligibility,
The department does not have any plans to extend free school meals entitlement to families in receipt of working tax credit and therefore have not made an assessment of the potential additional costs or benefits of extending free school meals to those households in receipt of working tax credit who meet the earned income threshold.
Working tax credit, alongside other legacy benefits are being phased out and replaced by Universal Credit. As families move from working tax credit onto Universal Credit, those with incomes below the earned income threshold of £7,400 per annum will benefit through becoming eligible to receive free school meals.
Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the timetable is for issuing statutory guidance on school uniform affordability.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department intends to put the school uniform guidance on a statutory footing when a suitable legislative opportunity arises. No education bill was announced in the most recent Queen’s speech, which set out the proposed legislative programme for this session of Parliament.
Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of planned funding for children's services in meeting future demand.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
All future funding for local government will be agreed in the Spending Review that my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer have announced will take place this year. For the financial year 2019 to 2020, the local government finance settlement that was published in December provides local government with core spending power of £46.4 billion. The Autumn Budget also gave an additional £410 million for local authorities to spend on adult and children’s services.
Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, which groups were successful in applying for funding from the Early Years VCS Disadvantage Grants 2018-20 programme.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Following a fair and open competition over the summer, bidders were notified of the outcome of their VCS Disadvantage Grant application on 19 September 2018. We are now completing pre-award clarifications with successful organisations. Once grant agreements have been issued we will publish the names of organisations on Contract Finder.