Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the number of (a) primary and (b) secondary school teachers by ethnicity in each of the last five years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The numbers of teachers in state-funded nursery and primary schools and state-funded secondary schools from different ethnic groups for the last 5 years is attached.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many (a) solar panels and (b) wind turbines his Department's buildings (a) have in 2020 and (b) had in each of the last five years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department does not have any wind turbines, nor does it have any functioning solar panels. This has been the case across the last 5 years.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will place in the Library a list of the workplace benefits that his Department provides to its staff with caring responsibilities.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department for Education provides the following workplace benefits to its staff with caring responsibilities:
For the past five years the DfE has supported a Carers’ Support Network for its employees with a caring role. This group of volunteers provide emotional and practical support to carers as well as working to influence DfE HR Policy.
.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he will introduce a natural history GCSE; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The exam board OCR has launched a consultation to gather views on what people think should be in a proposed GCSE in natural history. The Government has not made any commitment to introducing a GCSE in natural history, but we have indicated that we would consider any proposal put forward. Any such proposal would need to meet the same high standards and regulatory rules that we and the independent qualifications regulator Ofqual require from all GCSEs.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the number of temporary classrooms used in schools by each local authority for each of the last five years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The number of temporary classrooms used in schools by each local authority is not held centrally within the Department.
The Department does collect information on the condition of the school estate through the Condition Data Collection programme. This information is collected at the school building level; as it does not collect information on individual classrooms, we do not have a central record of the number of temporary classrooms used by schools.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many staff in his Department had caring responsibilities in each of the last five years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The information requested is not held centrally. The Department does not collect information about how many of its staff have caring responsibilities. The Department for Education is committed to supporting its employees with caring responsibilities. It has an active carers network which has recently achieved 'Carer Confident' accreditation, one of 10 Civil Service organisations to have done so.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire, representing the House of Commons Commission, what percentage of art on display on the Parliamentary Estate is from (a) BAME, (b) LGBTQ+, (c) disabled and d) female artists.
Answered by Pete Wishart
This information is not currently held.
In future the form which is sent to all contactable artists whose work is added to the Parliamentary Art Collection collecting their personal information will be amended to allow them to declare any protected characteristics they wish to provide. This information will be added to the searchable database which holds information on all works of art in the Collection.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire, representing the House of Commons Commission, whether guidance has been issued to staff procuring art for display on the Parliamentary Estate encouraging them to choose pieces from (a) BAME, (b) LGBTQ+, (c) female and (d) disabled artists; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Pete Wishart
The acquisition of artworks to the Parliamentary Art Collection is decided upon by the Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art.
It has been a focus of the Committee’s work over the past 15 or so years to actively improve diversity in the Collection, both in terms of the artworks and the artists represented. The curatorial staff work to enable this aspiration to be achieved by the Committee.
Recent examples of this focus are the acquisition of a bust of Olaudah Equiano, a commissioned portrait of Bernie Grant MP and works from the ‘209 Women’ project, all of which are on display in Portcullis House (Atrium and first floor corridor).
A new Committee has just been appointed and will be considering this matter further as they review policies and collecting priorities.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of introducing (a) a code of conduct for teacher supply agencues, (b) licenses for teacher supply agencies and (c) routine inspection of supply teaching.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department is working with the Crown Commercial Service to develop a commercial agreement for supply teachers, which is expected to be available for schools to use from September 2018. The contract will require suppliers to accept new terms and conditions developed in line with best practice recruitment in the education sector.
It is for schools to ensure they are satisfied with the quality of the supply teachers they use. Ofsted inspects the quality of education, including teaching, pupil attainment and assessment in a school.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when his Department plans to make a decision on whether to grant the request from Kingston Borough Council to disapply guidelines on the ring-fenced dedicated schools grant for the 2018-19 financial year.
Answered by Nick Gibb
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has already made decisions on some cases and the relevant local authorities have been informed. We are still reviewing the other cases received, and will give local authorities a decision shortly. Each request requires detailed review against the criteria issued in August 2017 and in some cases further information has been needed, on matters such as school forum decisions and local consultation, before a decision can be taken.
Local authorities are required to issue budgets to all their maintained schools by 28 February 2018, and we have committed to ensuring that all decisions on disapplications are communicated in time for local authorities to meet that deadline.