Asked by: Jo Platt (Labour (Co-op) - Leigh)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of further education provision in Leigh constituency.
Answered by Anne Milton
The quality of further education (FE) provision is assessed by Ofsted under their published inspection framework. Currently the 3 major FE colleges in Wigan local authority area, including Leigh, are rated by Ofsted as Outstanding or Good for Overall Effectiveness.
In July 2015, the government announced a rolling programme of around 40 local area reviews, to be completed by March 2017, covering all FE colleges in England. The reviews were designed to ensure that colleges are financially stable into the long term, that they are run efficiently, and are well-positioned to meet the present and future needs of individual students and the demands of employers. In November 2016, the Greater Manchester Area Review report was published at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/greater-manchester-further-education-area-review-report. This review did not recommend the need for any significant structural changes for further education provision in the Wigan area.
The new ‘College Oversight: Support and Intervention’ document, which was published at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/college-oversight-support-and-intervention on 1 April 2019, sets out how we will work with FE colleges to identify financial and quality issues early. It sets out the support and advice available to colleges when they need it from the FE Commissioner and the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA), who assess financial and quality issues on an ongoing basis. This support includes the potential for FE Commissioner-led local provision reviews, the need for which may arise from a number of challenges that affect a college and/or further education provision in a local area, such as:
The ESFA works with local authorities where there are concerns about gaps in suitable and accessible local FE provision for young people. Local authorities have broad duties to encourage, enable and assist young people to participate in education or training, including to secure sufficient suitable education and training provision for all young people in their area who are over compulsory school age but under 19 or aged 19 to 25 and for whom an Education, Health and Care plan is maintained, as set out at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/participation-of-young-people-education-employment-and-training. A concern has not been formally raised to ESFA by Wigan local authority in respect of adequacy of further education provision in Leigh.
From August 2019, responsibility for the funding and adequacy of adult FE provision for residents in Wigan (including Leigh) will pass to Greater Manchester Combined Authority under devolution arrangements.
Asked by: Jo Platt (Labour (Co-op) - Leigh)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what measure of performance his Department uses to monitor the outcomes of early years spending from the public purse in (a) Leigh constituency (b) Greater Manchester and (c) the North West.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Public Health Outcomes Framework is a comprehensive source of data at local authority unitary, county and district level on the extent to which local strategies are successful and effective in improving outcomes for children in the early years. It is available at the following link: https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile/public-health-outcomes-framework.
The framework includes data on outcomes for children aged 5 from the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (EYFSP). Further information on the EYFSP is broken down by local authority and available to view at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/early-years-foundation-stage-profile-results-2017-to-2018. We do not publish this data at constituency or combined authority level.