Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of fitting schools with air cleaning technology.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Officials in the department sit on the working group for a project looking at the implications and potential benefits of fitting primary schools with air cleaning technology: the Bradford classroom air cleaning technology (class-ACT) trial. This was funded by the Department of Health and Social Care and managed through the UK Health Security Agency. The study is run from the Centre for Applied Education Research, which is based at the Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, UK. The trial has concluded, and the academic leads intend to publish the results in a peer-reviewed journal in due course.
There is strong evidence from laboratory studies of the efficacy of high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter air cleaning units at removing airborne viruses from the air. Although they help improve air quality, air cleaning units do not reduce CO2 levels or improve ventilation so it’s important that they are not used as a substitute for ventilation or a reason to reduce it.
The department recognises that good ventilation helps to create a healthy indoor environment for staff and pupils. Letting fresh air into indoor spaces can help remove air that contains virus particles which reduces the risk of respiratory illnesses, as well as improves pupils’ alertness and concentration.
Between September 2021 and April 2023, the department delivered over 700,000 CO2 monitors to over 45,000 state-funded schools and colleges. This means that all eligible school and college now has an assigned CO2 monitor for every teaching and childcare space to help them manage their ventilation.
For schools and colleges that identified spaces with sustained high CO2 readings (1500ppm or more) through their monitors, an application process was made available for department funded HEPA filter air cleaning units. This policy was informed by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies Environmental Modelling Group which advises that air cleaning units have limited benefit in spaces that are already adequately ventilated and should only be considered where the ventilation is inadequate and cannot be easily improved. The department has subsequently delivered over 9,000 air cleaning units to over 1,300 settings between January 2022 and April 2023.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to increase the (a) recruitment and (b) retention rates of SEND teaching assistants in (i) primary and (ii) secondary schools in England.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The government’s education reforms gave schools the freedom to make their own decisions about recruitment, pay, conditions, and use of teaching assistants. Schools should have the freedom to make these decisions, as they are best placed to understand their pupils’ needs.
The term ‘teaching assistant’ may refer to a range of roles, including classroom assistants, learning mentors, and learning support assistants. Most teaching assistants play a role supporting pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), whether or not SEND is in their job title.
The number of teaching assistants in schools has increased year on year since 2017/18, reaching 281,100 full time equivalent (FTE) teaching assistants working in state funded schools in 2022/23. This is an increase of 5,300 (1.9%) since 2021/22 and is the highest number since the School Workforce Census began in 2011/12.
The number of teaching assistants increased in both primary and secondary schools. There were 185,000 FTE in state funded nursery and primary schools in 2022/23, an increase of 3,500 (1.9%) since 2021/22, and 49,000 FTE in state funded secondary schools in 2022, an increase of 800 (1.7%) since 2021/22.
For schools that have teaching assistant vacancies, the government’s Teaching Vacancies service is a free, national job listing service that is saving schools money and delivering quality candidates. This service can help schools to list vacancies for both permanent and fixed term teaching staff, including teaching assistants.
Schools can also access up to £7,000 in levy funding to train and upskill teaching assistants through the recently revised Level 3 Teaching Assistant apprenticeship.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what she is doing to increase (a) retention and (b) recruitment rates of teaching assistants in (i) primary and (ii) secondary schools in England.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The government’s education reforms gave schools the freedom to make their own decisions about recruitment, pay, conditions, and use of teaching assistants. Schools should have the freedom to make these decisions, as they are best placed to understand their pupils’ needs.
The term ‘teaching assistant’ may refer to a range of roles, including classroom assistants, learning mentors, and learning support assistants. Most teaching assistants play a role supporting pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), whether or not SEND is in their job title.
The number of teaching assistants in schools has increased year on year since 2017/18, reaching 281,100 full time equivalent (FTE) teaching assistants working in state funded schools in 2022/23. This is an increase of 5,300 (1.9%) since 2021/22 and is the highest number since the School Workforce Census began in 2011/12.
The number of teaching assistants increased in both primary and secondary schools. There were 185,000 FTE in state funded nursery and primary schools in 2022/23, an increase of 3,500 (1.9%) since 2021/22, and 49,000 FTE in state funded secondary schools in 2022, an increase of 800 (1.7%) since 2021/22.
For schools that have teaching assistant vacancies, the government’s Teaching Vacancies service is a free, national job listing service that is saving schools money and delivering quality candidates. This service can help schools to list vacancies for both permanent and fixed term teaching staff, including teaching assistants.
Schools can also access up to £7,000 in levy funding to train and upskill teaching assistants through the recently revised Level 3 Teaching Assistant apprenticeship.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has had recent discussions with headteachers of secondary schools on the level of workloads for teachers in those schools; and whether she is taking steps to improve working conditions for secondary school teachers.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department is committed to working with head teachers and teachers to reduce unnecessary workload and minimise burdens on schools. Part of this commitment is the development of the School Workload Reduction Toolkit which provides practical resources to help reduce workload.
The Department has also conducted numerous research projects with head teachers and teachers to understand what works to reduce workload. The Department regularly surveys and engages directly with the profession to explore a range of policy measures, including working hours.
In addition, the Secretary of State recently announced that the Department will convene a Workload Reduction Taskforce. The group will be made up of experts, teaching unions and head teachers to explore how the Department can go further to support teachers and head teachers to minimise workload for teachers.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether (a) ancillary staff and (b) teaching assistants will receive the same level of pay increase as has been awarded to teachers from September 2023.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Schools have the autonomy to make their own decisions about budgets. For most staff, including Teaching Assistants (TAs), schools have the ability to recruit according to their own circumstances and set pay and conditions.
Many schools pay TAs according to Local Government pay scales. These are set through negotiations between the Local Government Association, which represents the employer, and Local Government trade unions (UNISON, Unite, and the GMB), which represent the employee. Central Government does not have any formal role in these matters.
Local Government employees covered by the National Joint Council for Local Government Services pay and conditions, including most school support staff, have been offered a flat cash uplift of £1,925 from 1 April 2023. This is the same cash uplift as was agreed for the 2022/23 pay deal, which equated to 10.5% at the bottom of the pay range, to 4% at the top. The 2023/24 offer is currently under negotiation.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the announcement on 13 July 2023 that schoolteachers will receive a 6.5 per cent pay increase from September 2023, what assessment she has made of the potential effect on educational (a) provision and (b) outcomes of 3.5 percentage points of that pay increase being allocated from school budgets.
Answered by Nick Gibb
In November last year at the Autumn Statement, the Department announced an additional £2 billion in each of the 2023/24 and 2024/25 financial years, over and above totals announced at the 2021 Spending Review.
On 13 July 2023, the Department announced an additional £525 million this year, to support schools with the teachers’ pay award, and a further £900 million in the 2024/25 financial year.
It means overall school funding is rising by over £3.9 billion this year alone, compared to the 2022/23 financial year, on top of a £4 billion cash increase last year. Combined, that represents a 16% increase in just two years. School funding in 2024/25 will be more than £59.6 billion, the highest ever level in real terms per pupil.
This additional funding will enable head teachers to continue to invest in the areas that positively impact educational attainment, including high quality teaching and targeted support to the pupils who need it most, as well as helping schools to manage higher costs, including teacher pay awards.
Each year the Department publishes an assessment of schools’ costs and funding, which informs what pay award the Department judges to be affordable for schools from within this existing funding. In March 2023, the Department set out its calculation that schools, on average, could afford a pay award of 4% from within existing funding.
The Department decided to fund the 2023 pay award from a lower affordability figure than the 4% calculation, funding the costs of the pay award above 3.5%, on average, rather than above the 4% national affordability calculation. This is a more generous funding offer than back in March 2023, and all four unions have confirmed that this ensures the pay award is properly funded.
The Department is also providing a further up to £40 million in addition to the £525 million in the 2023/24 financial year, to support individual schools which find themselves in particular financial difficulties. This is to be allocated on a case by case basis.
Although the Department will have to make difficult decisions, the Secretary of State has been clear all frontline services will be protected. Funding for Early Years, SEND, School Conditions and Core School and College Budgets are fully protected. To help fund the pay award, the Secretary of State has also secured exceptional permission from the Treasury to keep money where there have been or will be underspends, which in normal years would have to be returned to Treasury.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Government is taking to respond to the recommendations on Apprenticeship pay rates in Low Pay Commission's annual report for 2022.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The government is committed to ensuring that apprentice pay supports the attraction and retention of talented individuals into apprenticeships.
The independent Low Pay Commission (LPC) is responsible for advising the government on annual changes to minimum pay rates. Its recommendations follow a period of extensive research and consultation with employers, sector representative bodies and government stakeholders. The report for 2022 can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1129930/Low_Pay_Commission_Report_2022.pdf.
In November 2022, the government accepted, in full, the LPC’s recommendation to increase the Apprentice National Minimum Wage by 9.7% to £5.28 from April 2023.
Many employers choose to pay their apprentices more than the National Minimum Wage rate, recognising the value that apprentices bring to their workplace. Our data shows that average hourly pay for apprentices ranges between £8.23 for level 2 and £14.02 for level 6.
The LPC has committed to keeping the Apprentice Rate under close review. The consultation to inform their recommendations on the 2024 minimum wage rates ran from 23 March and closed on 9 June 2023. It is expected that the government will receive the recommendations through the 2023 annual report, this autumn.
The department continues to offer financial support to apprentices and makes £1,000 payments to employers and providers when they take on apprentices aged 16-18. This can be used to support costs such as wages, uniforms or travel, and the department is increasing the care leavers bursary from £1,000 to £3,000.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the Education Recovery Programme on (a) children with special educational needs and disabilities and (b) additional learning needs.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
Helping pupils recover from the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic is a departmental priority. The department recognises the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on pupils, particularly those with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and other additional learning needs.
Through education recovery funding, the department has consistently prioritised pupils who attend specialist schools by providing additional uplifts to these schools in the Catch-up Premium in 2020/21, the Recovery Premium over 2021/22 to 2023/24, and summer schools in summer 2021. These pupils have also been supported through the school led tutoring for pupils who attend specialist settings including special units in mainstream schools, in recognition of the significantly higher per pupil costs they face.
All pupils will benefit from additional funding to ensure that teachers in schools and early years are able to access high quality training and professional development. The department knows that high quality teaching is the best way to support all pupils, including those with SEND.
Evaluations of recovery interventions continue to be conducted and published when available, helping the department to understand their effectiveness and guide future policies and programmes. The department continues to monitor levels of attainment to understand the effects the COVID-19 pandemic and the department’s education policies have had, including on those children with SEND.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the Government is taking steps to help ensure children in care are not moved away from where they were born.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
Local authorities have a statutory duty set out in Section 22(3) of the Children’s Act 1989 to ensure that there is sufficient provision in their area to meet the needs of children in their care.
The department recognises that there are not enough of the right homes in the right places for children in care to live in. We want to reduce out of area placements, but sometimes circumstances mean it is the right decision for a child to be placed outside their home authority.
In response to the urgent calls from the Competition and Markets Authority and the Care Review to transform the way care is provided to children, the government is working to drive forward improvements at a national, regional, and local level to increase sufficiency and improve standards of care and regulations.
By 2027, we will see an increase in the availability of high-quality, stable, and loving homes for every child in care local to where they are from. To achieve this, we are supporting local authorities to increase care placements and ensure they meet children’s needs, with £259 million capital funding for secure and open children’s homes.
The department is also investing £10 million to develop Regional Care Co-operatives (RCCs) to plan, commission, and deliver children’s social care placements. Through operating on a larger scale and developing specialist capabilities, the RCCs will be able to develop a wide range of places to better meet children’s needs. This, in turn, should lead to improved placement stability and fewer out of area placements.
We are also seeking to rebalance the market through investing in foster care. The department has pledged to invest over £27 million over the next two years to deliver a fostering recruitment and retention programme, so that foster care is available for more children who need it.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 24 April 2023 to Question 180692 on Free School Meals: Disability, if she will make an assessment of (a) the potential implications for her policies of the research by Contact entitled Free School Meals survey results, published in April 2023, on the number of eligible disabled children who do not receive free school meals and (b) whether schools are taking adequate steps to ensure that their food provision accounts for medical, dietary and cultural needs.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Schools have a duty to provide nutritious, free meals to pupils who meet the eligibility criteria, including being a registered pupil of a state funded school. Free school meal (FSM) provision should be made to eligible pupils either on the school premises or at any other place where education is being provided. The Department expects schools to act reasonably in ensuring that their food provision accounts for medical, dietary and cultural needs and has published statutory guidance, which describes steps school may take, including the establishment of individual healthcare plans which may include special diets. The statutory guidance is available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/803956/supporting-pupils-at-school-with-medical-conditions.pdf#:~:text=On%201%20September%202014%20a%20new%20duty%20came,life%2C%20remain%20healthy%20and%20achieve%20their%20academic%20potential.
Local Authorities are funded to support children with special needs, including those who are unable to attend school on a long term basis. The Department’s published guidance on this can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/illness-child-education.
The Department does not plan to expand FSM to include pupils who are home, or privately educated. The Department will continue to keep eligibility under review to ensure that these meals are supporting those who most need them.