Asked by: Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the adult education budget is in each region of England for the current financial year.
Answered by Anne Milton
The Adult Education Budget (AEB) is not allocated to specific regions. The Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) allocates AEB to individual providers, who under the current freedoms and flexibility policy are able to use their funds to support any English learner.
The published allocations can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sfa-funding-allocations-to-training-providers-2016-to-2017.
Asked by: Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the attainment gap between disadvantaged and other students in (a) A-levels, (b) vocational qualifications and (c) all Level 3 qualifications by age 19 in each region of England.
Answered by Anne Milton
From 2017, the 16 to 18 performance tables and associated statistical release (A level and other revised 16-18 results) will include disadvantage measures to illustrate differences between how well disadvantaged students in a school or college do compared to non-disadvantaged state-funded students nationally. These measures will report on the 16 to 18 outcomes of students eligible for pupil premium funding in year 11, against each of the five headline measures: progress, attainment, English and mathematics progress, retention, and destinations.
Information on the attainment gap between disadvantaged and other students in (a) A levels, (b) vocational qualifications and (c) all Level 3 qualifications by age 19 can be found as part of the ‘Education statistics by LA district and pupil disadvantage’1,2 publication.
Asked by: Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of 16 to 19-year olds participate in (a) A-levels and (b) a technical or vocational pathway in each region of England.
Answered by Anne Milton
The proportion of students at the end of their 16-18 study, entering A levels, tech levels and applied general qualifications is published as part of the A level and other 16-18 results Statistical First Release (SFR)1.
The published figures are based on only those students at the end of their 16-18 study, not on all 16-19 year-olds. The proportion of the whole population of 16-19 year olds can be estimated using the numerators used in the above table from the SFR1 and taking the denominator from either the ONS population estimates for the relevant age group2 or the number of students at the end of key stage 4 in 2013/14 as the total potential 16-18 cohort for the academic year 2015/163.
1. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/a-level-and-other-16-to-18-results-2015-to-2016-revised (Local authority tables: SFR05/2017 – table 9a).
2. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/datasets/populationestimatesforukenglandandwalesscotlandandnorthernireland. Select the mid 2016 dataset and sum the figures for all 16-19 year olds.
3. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-gcses-key-stage-4. Table 1a in the ‘national tables’ provides the number of pupils at the end of key stage 4 for that year.
Asked by: Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has provided any funding for the website teachlist.net.
Answered by Nick Gibb
According to our records, we have not identified any direct funding for the website teachlist.net.
Asked by: Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, (a) how much and (b) what proportion of the adult education budget is funded by the European Social Fund in each English region.
Answered by Anne Milton
The European Social Fund (ESF) does not form part of the Adult Education Budget.
Asked by: Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how the adult education budget is calculated in London.
Answered by Anne Milton
The adult education budget (AEB) is not allocated to specific areas. The Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) allocates AEB to individual providers, who under the current freedoms and flexibility policy are able to use their funds to support any English learners.
The ESFA publish allocations and these can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sfa-funding-allocations-to-training-providers-2016-to-2017.
In 2016/17 the ESFA allocated £316 million to providers with a head office location in London.
Please note this data relates to head office location and is therefore not a measure of spend on residents of London.
Asked by: Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of adults who are (a) Black, Asian and minority ethnic, (b) with a special educational need or disability or (c) from disadvantaged backgrounds do not participate in any adult education or training.
Answered by Anne Milton
Estimates for the proportion of different groups who do not participate in adult education and training are not available.
However, the department does produce equality and diversity information on current participants in further education (FE) and skills provision, published as part of its further education official statistics here https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/fe-data-library-further-education-and-skills.
The Higher Education Statistics Authority (HESA) also publish numbers of students in higher education by student characteristics here: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/analysis/eddata/.
Asked by: Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will provide an update on her Department's move from Sanctuary Buildings to Old Admiralty Building; and what the cost of that move is to date, including refurbishment and consultancy fees.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
The Old Admiralty Building is important for the government as a large and strategically placed freehold asset. The Department is undertaking the renovation and refurbishment on behalf of the government. The Department will take occupation of the building, following the refurbishment programme. By renovating and upgrading the building, we are maximising the value of this important heritage asset and providing a good home for the department. The cost to date, including refurbishment and consultancy fees is £48.34m.
Asked by: Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of demand for digital skills in London.
Answered by Anne Milton
London is regarded as one of the world’s leading technology hubs generating over £30billion GVA (Gross Value Added) to the local economy, and sustaining over 300,000 jobs (according to Tech Nation 2017). However, it is predicted that within 20 years, 90% of all jobs will require some element of digital skills. Effective digital skills provision is essential to ensure the workforce is prepared for this and future technological changes.
Government is taking action at all stages of the education and training pipeline to help encourage young people into digital-related careers and meet demand for digital skills in and out of London. We have introduced computing as a statutory national curriculum subject at all four key stages, and have introduced a new Computer Science GCSE and A Level. We have also introduced an entitlement for adults who lack basic digital skills to undertake fully-funded training as part of the publicly-funded adult education offer. This will ensure adults have the opportunity to secure the basic digital skills that are increasingly needed to participate effectively in the labour market and day–to-day life.
We have also established the Digital Skills Partnership, which was announced in the Digital Strategy (March 2017) and launched in July 2017. The Partnership will bring together industry, local businesses, local government, charities and other organisations to bring greater coherence to provision of digital skills training at a national level and also support local level partnerships to increase digital capability.
In London specifically, we committed to devolve the adult education budget to London from 2019/20. We have also established Ada, the National College for Digital Skills. Ada opened in September 2016 and is supported by investment of £13 million from Government and £18 million from the Greater London Authority. The college will train 5,000 students over the next five years for a wide range of digital careers, such as software and database developers, user experience designers and tech entrepreneurs. Ada is also working with private sector organisations such as Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Deloitte, IBM and Google.
Asked by: Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the (a) number and (b) proportion of adults in London who do not have core digital skills.
Answered by Anne Milton
The Skills for Life Survey, 2011, estimated the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) skills of adults aged 16-64 in England, including estimates by region. ICT skills were assessed against four competencies (word processing, emailing, spreadsheets and a multiple choice assessment of other ICT skills such as internet use). The estimates of the numbers and percentage of the adult population with different skill levels for these components for England and London are in the table attached.