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.
Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to monitor the adequacy of the number of Teachers of the Deaf.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The funding made available through the new Department for Education contracts covers a wide range of activity designed to support the education workforce, support families, and support local authorities and their partners. Within this, £3.4 million has been provided for the special educational needs and disability (SEND) Schools’ Workforce contract, a strand of which is a study to understand the supply, demand and drivers for SEND continuing professional development (CPD). Also included is an exercise to map access to CPD and an analysis of the gaps in training and resources available to schools. The aim of the contract is to ensure that all teachers are equipped to respond to the needs of their pupils, including those with hearing impairment.
Supporting teachers of pupils with sensory impairment is part of the contract, but direct funding for Teachers of the Deaf is not included in this activity and the department does not fund the training of Teachers of the Deaf. It is up to local authorities to work with the schools in their area to identify the nature of specialist support services they commission according to the needs of schools in their authority. The SEND Code of Practice makes clear that all local authorities are required to publish a local offer, which sets out information about provision they expect to be available for children and young people with SEND in their area. The local offer must include relevant regional and national specialist provision, such as provision for children and young people with low-incidence and more complex special educational needs (SEN).
Under the SEND Schools’ Workforce contract, eight regional hubs will be created, consisting of a Regional and Deputy Regional SEND Leader in each region. Their role is to identify and bring together local SEND networks and to support school improvement, including condition specific networks. As part of that work, they will make links with the SEND leads in local authorities and will use those discussions to identify weaknesses and priorities for school improvement in the area.
Our work with the whole school SEND programme will help us understand the gaps in training and resources available to schools to support pupils with SEND, including the needs of mainstream schools to support pupils with hearing impairments. As we review the conclusions of that analysis, we will also consider the information received from the National Deaf Children’s Society on trends in the recruitment of Teachers of the Deaf.
The department is reviewing recruitment and retention data to understand whether special schools and alternative providers are facing teacher shortages and how this compares to mainstream teaching as part of a wider focus on teacher recruitment and retention.
Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 11 September 2018 to Question 169059 on Pupils: Hearing Impairment, whether the new SEND regional leads have been tasked with engaging with local authority specialist education services for deaf children.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The funding made available through the new Department for Education contracts covers a wide range of activity designed to support the education workforce, support families, and support local authorities and their partners. Within this, £3.4 million has been provided for the special educational needs and disability (SEND) Schools’ Workforce contract, a strand of which is a study to understand the supply, demand and drivers for SEND continuing professional development (CPD). Also included is an exercise to map access to CPD and an analysis of the gaps in training and resources available to schools. The aim of the contract is to ensure that all teachers are equipped to respond to the needs of their pupils, including those with hearing impairment.
Supporting teachers of pupils with sensory impairment is part of the contract, but direct funding for Teachers of the Deaf is not included in this activity and the department does not fund the training of Teachers of the Deaf. It is up to local authorities to work with the schools in their area to identify the nature of specialist support services they commission according to the needs of schools in their authority. The SEND Code of Practice makes clear that all local authorities are required to publish a local offer, which sets out information about provision they expect to be available for children and young people with SEND in their area. The local offer must include relevant regional and national specialist provision, such as provision for children and young people with low-incidence and more complex special educational needs (SEN).
Under the SEND Schools’ Workforce contract, eight regional hubs will be created, consisting of a Regional and Deputy Regional SEND Leader in each region. Their role is to identify and bring together local SEND networks and to support school improvement, including condition specific networks. As part of that work, they will make links with the SEND leads in local authorities and will use those discussions to identify weaknesses and priorities for school improvement in the area.
Our work with the whole school SEND programme will help us understand the gaps in training and resources available to schools to support pupils with SEND, including the needs of mainstream schools to support pupils with hearing impairments. As we review the conclusions of that analysis, we will also consider the information received from the National Deaf Children’s Society on trends in the recruitment of Teachers of the Deaf.
The department is reviewing recruitment and retention data to understand whether special schools and alternative providers are facing teacher shortages and how this compares to mainstream teaching as part of a wider focus on teacher recruitment and retention.
Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 11 September 2018 to Question 169059 on Pupils: Hearing Impairment, what proportion of that funding has been made available to the recruitment and retention of Teachers of the Deaf.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The funding made available through the new Department for Education contracts covers a wide range of activity designed to support the education workforce, support families, and support local authorities and their partners. Within this, £3.4 million has been provided for the special educational needs and disability (SEND) Schools’ Workforce contract, a strand of which is a study to understand the supply, demand and drivers for SEND continuing professional development (CPD). Also included is an exercise to map access to CPD and an analysis of the gaps in training and resources available to schools. The aim of the contract is to ensure that all teachers are equipped to respond to the needs of their pupils, including those with hearing impairment.
Supporting teachers of pupils with sensory impairment is part of the contract, but direct funding for Teachers of the Deaf is not included in this activity and the department does not fund the training of Teachers of the Deaf. It is up to local authorities to work with the schools in their area to identify the nature of specialist support services they commission according to the needs of schools in their authority. The SEND Code of Practice makes clear that all local authorities are required to publish a local offer, which sets out information about provision they expect to be available for children and young people with SEND in their area. The local offer must include relevant regional and national specialist provision, such as provision for children and young people with low-incidence and more complex special educational needs (SEN).
Under the SEND Schools’ Workforce contract, eight regional hubs will be created, consisting of a Regional and Deputy Regional SEND Leader in each region. Their role is to identify and bring together local SEND networks and to support school improvement, including condition specific networks. As part of that work, they will make links with the SEND leads in local authorities and will use those discussions to identify weaknesses and priorities for school improvement in the area.
Our work with the whole school SEND programme will help us understand the gaps in training and resources available to schools to support pupils with SEND, including the needs of mainstream schools to support pupils with hearing impairments. As we review the conclusions of that analysis, we will also consider the information received from the National Deaf Children’s Society on trends in the recruitment of Teachers of the Deaf.
The department is reviewing recruitment and retention data to understand whether special schools and alternative providers are facing teacher shortages and how this compares to mainstream teaching as part of a wider focus on teacher recruitment and retention.