Asked by: Clive Lewis (Labour - Norwich South)
Question to the Department for Education:
What steps he is taking to improve the information available to prospective students on the costs and benefits of higher education.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The Department is working to make information, advice and guidance on higher education options more accessible to prospective students.
We are running an Open Data Competition to support development of innovative online platforms to provide information on graduate outcomes. We have introduced the Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework to help students identify excellent teaching and best graduate outcomes. The Student Loans Company (SLC) also regularly reviews and updates student finance information based on feedback from students.
Asked by: Clive Lewis (Labour - Norwich South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he has made an assessment of the cost of servicing private finance initiative contracts on school budgets.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Local authorities are responsible for setting their own formulae to determine how much funding each school in their area receives. As part of their local formulae, local authorities can include a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) factor to reflect the additional costs associated with PFI schools. In 2017-18, local authorities distributed a total of £154 million through a PFI factor.
The amount local authorities receive for their schools is now determined by the national funding formula. The national funding formula also includes a PFI factor, which in 2018-19 is equivalent to how much local authorities spent through their local PFI factor in 2017-18, plus an uplift in line with inflation, which reflects the fact that many PFI contracts are indexed in this way. Local authorities can decide how to pass this uplift on to their schools.
Asked by: Clive Lewis (Labour - Norwich South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what his policy is on the role of schools in the (a) negotiation and (b) renegotiation of private finance initiative contracts.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Where contract holders want to make changes to contracts, including changes to achieve savings, the Department expects that contract holders should work with the schools affected if there could be any impact on services. Where schools would like to instigate a change to the contract, they will need to work with the local authority that is a party to the contract.
The Department has not carried out an assessment of the profits earned by the private sector on private finance contracts relating to schools. At the point of initially procuring for contracts, the Department maximises value for money for the public sector by seeking the best price available in the market at that time.
Asked by: Clive Lewis (Labour - Norwich South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the level of profit made by private finance agencies on private finance initiative contracts with schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Where contract holders want to make changes to contracts, including changes to achieve savings, the Department expects that contract holders should work with the schools affected if there could be any impact on services. Where schools would like to instigate a change to the contract, they will need to work with the local authority that is a party to the contract.
The Department has not carried out an assessment of the profits earned by the private sector on private finance contracts relating to schools. At the point of initially procuring for contracts, the Department maximises value for money for the public sector by seeking the best price available in the market at that time.
Asked by: Clive Lewis (Labour - Norwich South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 16 April 2018 to Question 135187, how much of the £26 million funding for school breakfast clubs will be allocated in the 2019-20 financial year.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
We are investing up to £26 million in a breakfast club programme, using funds from Soft Drinks Industry Levy revenues.
We anticipate allocating around £14 million during the 2019-20 financial year.
Asked by: Clive Lewis (Labour - Norwich South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, for what reason the Norwich Area Programme targets do not recognise vocational trade-related qualifications as a measure of progress for disadvantaged young people.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
The priorities and targets for the Norwich Opportunity Area were developed and agreed by the Opportunity Area Partnership Board. The board is made up of key local stakeholders, including representatives from education and business. The Partnership Board conducted a comprehensive, in-depth analysis of local needs and set out its four key priorities and targets on the basis of the evidence and local consultation.
I strongly agree about the importance of encouraging more disadvantaged young people, and indeed more young people from all backgrounds, to take up high quality vocational qualifications. One of the priorities set out in the Norwich Opportunity Area plan is to ensure that young people have access to the information and support they need to move successfully between education and into work. Within this priority, the plan has set an ambitious target around increasing the number of young people going into either a higher apprenticeship or higher education. The plan also sets the target that by 2021, 50% of 19 year olds will be qualified to level 3, which includes vocational qualifications. We will keep these priorities under review as the Opportunity Area programme develops and would be happy to engage with the hon. Member on next steps.
Asked by: Clive Lewis (Labour - Norwich South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much her Department plans to spend on high quality industry creative courses in schools in the next five years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Technical and applied qualifications in creative industry subjects are available to students as part of their funded Key Stage 4 and 16-19 study programmes
When new and more substantial technical education programmes (‘T levels’) are introduced in the Creative and Design route for 16-19 year olds, there will be additional funding for them, as part of an additional £500 million per year for T levels in general
The Education Secretary also recently announced an additional £1.3billion for schools funding over two years - meaning schools funding will be £2.6 billion higher.
In November 2016 we announced a package of funding for music and cultural education that is designed to improve access to the arts for all children. For 2017-18 we are providing over £120 million to support a range of music and cultural education programmes including £75 million for music education hubs.
Asked by: Clive Lewis (Labour - Norwich South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what options are available to learners on college-based technical routes who do not have access to structural work placements as a result of the variation of work experience within the sector they are studying.
Answered by Anne Milton
In the Post 16 Skills Plan, every young person taking a college-based technical education route (T Level) will be entitled to a substantial work placement when T levels are rolled out.
At the Spring Budget, we announced significant funding to boost the sector’s capacity to deliver work placements with the first £50m available from April 2018.
We will also be running a series of work placement pilots from September to test different approaches and to see what works across different sectors and employer sizes. These pilots will address any challenges.
Asked by: Clive Lewis (Labour - Norwich South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make it her policy that parents will retain the right to remain anonymous from the school in question when they object to a schools admission arrangements under the School Admissions Code after the forthcoming review of that code.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Regulations allow the Schools Adjudicator to withhold the name and address of a person making an objection to a school’s admission arrangements from the other parties to that objection. We have no plans to change this.