Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the potential impact of free school meals on educational attainment.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The department has not recently made a formal assessment of the links between free school meals and educational outcomes.
Nutritious food plays an important role in the development of healthy eating habits and ensures that pupils can concentrate and learn. That is why the department spends over £1 billion annually providing free meals to the greatest ever proportion of school children. Over one third of children are now eligible for free school meals, compared to one in six in 2010. This increase has been driven by the introduction of Universal Infant Free School Meals in 2014, as well as the department’s generous Universal Credit transitional protections put in place in 2018.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to tackle the backlog in issuing education, health and care (EHC) plans for children; and whether she plans to make an assessment of the impact of delays on the (a) short and (b) long term development of children.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Where local authorities are failing to deliver consistent outcomes for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) – including failing to produce timely Education, Health and Care (EHC) assessments – the department will work with them using a range of improvement programmes and SEND specialist advisors to address weaknesses.
The department’s SEND and alternative provision (AP) Improvement Plan recognised the need to reduce delays in children and young people receiving timely assessments and support and has a clear focus on early intervention. Through the SEND and AP Change Programme, the department is testing a range of reforms to improve the EHC plan process, including standardised templates and guidance, the use of multi-agency panels to improve decision-making, digital reforms, and strengthened mediation arrangements.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent steps her Department has taken to increase the number of places for (a) children with autism and (b) children with special needs in schools.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
In March 2024, the department announced trusts to run 30 new special free schools, which included 17 designated to cater for pupils with autism. The Spring Budget announced funding for 15 special free schools. The department will announce the location of these new schools in May.
In March the department also published just under £850 million of High Needs Provision Capital Allocations for the 2023/24 and 2024/25 financial years. This funding forms part of our transformational investment of £2.6 billion in new high needs provision between 2022 and 2025. Local authorities can use the funding to deliver new places in mainstream and special schools, as well as other specialist settings, and to improve the suitability and accessibility of existing buildings.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of not increasing pupil premium funding in line with inflation on disadvantaged students.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Pupil premium funding is rising to over £2.9 billion in 2024/25, an increase of around £90 million from 2023 to 2024. In 2024/25 the pupil premium funding rate for primary pupils is £1,480, and £1,050 for secondary pupils. Looked-after, and previously looked-after, children attract a higher rate of £2,570.
These rates for 2024/25 were an increase of 1.7% on those for 2023/24. This increase was in line with inflation as measured by the GDP deflator forecasts when the rates were announced for 2024/25. As the inflation forecast for 2024/25 has since reduced, the increase in pupil premium rates of 1.7% is now higher than the latest inflation forecast.
This increase ensures that this target funding continues to help schools to support disadvantaged pupils and close attainment gaps.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of providing free access to British sign language classes for the (a) parents and (b) caregivers of all newly-identified deaf children.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
The Adult Education Budget (AEB) targets a wide range of eligible individuals including parents and caregivers of all newly-identified deaf children.
The Adult Education Budget (AEB) funds qualifications in, or focussing on, British Sign Language (BSL) up to and including Level 2. Approximately 60% of the AEB has been devolved to Mayoral Combined Authorities and the Greater London Authority, who determine which provision to fund for learners who live in their areas. The Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) provides the remaining funding for learners who live in non-devolved areas, which includes Preston Constituency.
ESFA funded AEB qualifications include, for example, the Level 1 Award in BSL, which allows learners to communicate in BSL on a range of topics that involve simple, everyday language use, thereby giving them the basic skills and confidence in production and reception of BSL. It will depend on an individual’s circumstances as to whether they are entitled to free provision or expected to meet part of the cost through co-funding. Where community learning providers offer BSL courses, those providers are responsible for determining the course fees, including levels of fee remission.
For parents learning BSL on an AEB funded course, there is also additional support available. The AEB provides funding to colleges and providers to help adult learners overcome barriers preventing them from accessing learning. Providers have discretion to help learners meet costs such as transport, accommodation, books, equipment and childcare. Learning support funding also helps colleges and training providers to meet the additional needs of learners with learning difficulties and/or disabilities and the costs of reasonable adjustments as set out in the Equality Act 2010.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policies of the reasons for which some disabled children cannot (a) eat and (b) access free school meals; and whether she plans to make reasonable adjustments to free school meals to help disabled children to access them.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
All schools have duties under the Equality Act 2010 towards individual disabled children and young people, and they must make reasonable adjustments to prevent them being put at a substantial disadvantage. This means that a school cannot treat a pupil unfairly as a consequence of their disability.
As it relates to school food, the duty to make reasonable adjustments requires schools to tailor their provision to ensure that it is accessible to disabled pupils. Furthermore, this duty is anticipatory, and so schools need to actively consider whether any reasonable adjustments are needed in order to avoid any disadvantage that may otherwise occur.
The department has updated its existing guidance on free school meals to clarify schools’ duties to make reasonable adjustments for disabled children, and to support productive conversations between schools and parents about suitable food provision. The guidance can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65fdad5965ca2f00117da947/Free_school_meals.pdf.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to increase nursery staff in the North West, in the context of the Government's plans to expand the number of free childcare places.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
By the 2027/28 financial year, the government will expect to be spending in excess of £8 billion every year on free hours and early education, helping working families with their childcare costs. This represents the single biggest investment in childcare in England ever.
In February, the department launched a new national recruitment campaign for the early years and childcare sector, ‘Do something BIG. Work with small children’, and a financial incentives pilot. Eligible joiners and returners will receive a tax-free payment of up to £1,000. This followed the introduction of workforce flexibilities to the Early Years Foundation Stage in January.
The department has also introduced Skills Bootcamps for Early Years, which will create a pathway to accelerated Level 3 Early Years Apprenticeships. The number of paid childcare staff in 2023 is estimated at 347,300 compared to 334,400 paid childcare staff in 2022, an increase of 3.86%. Additionally, the department has invested up to £180 million in providing an early years education recovery package of workforce training, qualifications and support and guidance for the early years sector. This includes additional places for early years initial teacher training (EYITT), and new level 3 qualifications criteria for early years educators to ensure higher quality training and better care for children. The new criteria will come into effect from September 2024.
For the North West, the total number of staff working in group and school based providers has increased from 39,394 in 2018 to 42,027 in 2023, an increase of 6.68%.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help reduce school absenteeism in Lancashire.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The department has a comprehensive national attendance strategy to ensure that every child attends school every day in all regions of the country.
This includes the recently expanded attendance hubs programme. There are now a total of almost 2,000 schools, including nine schools in Lancashire, who have been assigned a hub to tackle persistent absence, reaching around 1 million pupils. Attendance hubs are led by senior leaders in schools with effective attendance practice as a way for them to share practical approaches and resources for improving attendance.
The department published guidance on working together to improve school attendance to ensure that all local authorities and schools, including those in Lancashire, work together to reduce school absenteeism. The guidance is available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1099677/Working_together_to_improve_school_attendance.pdf.
Local authorities, including Lancashire, are expected to rigorously track local attendance data to devise a strategic approach to attendance. In addition, all schools in all regions are required to have an attendance policy and to appoint an attendance champion who is responsible for enforcing this. To help identify children at risk of persistent absence and to enable early intervention, the department established a timelier flow of pupil level attendance data through the daily attendance data collection.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department plans to increase funding to local authorities for the provision of free bus travel to schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department’s school travel policy aims to make sure that no pupil is prevented from accessing education by a lack of transport. Local Authorities must arrange free home to school travel for pupils of compulsory school age who attend their nearest school and would not be able to walk there because of the distance, their special educational needs, disability or mobility problem, or because the nature of the route means it would be unsafe for them to do so. There are extended rights to free travel for pupils from low income families. In the 2021/22 financial year (the most recent year for which data is currently available), Local Authorities spent £1.4 billion on home to school travel for pupils of compulsory school age.
The majority of central Government funding for home to school travel is made available to Local Authorities through the Local Government Finance Settlement (LGFS) administered by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC). DLUHC will bring forward proposals for the Local Government Finance Settlement 2024/25 in the usual way later in the year. When finalising budgets, local Government spending will be carefully considered to ensure councils can continue to deliver vital services. This will include considering the effect of inflation and other wider economic circumstances. The local Government finance policy statement, published last December, sets out the measures expected to be maintained into 2024/25.
The Department additionally provides grant funding to Local Authorities as a contribution towards the cost of ‘extended rights’ travel, this is just under £45.8 million in the 2023/24 financial year.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether it is her Department's policy that any future pay increases for school staff will not come from existing school budgets.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Funding for mainstream schools and high needs, including the additional funding announced at the Autumn Statement 2022, is £3.5 billion higher in 2023/24 compared to 2022/23. Funding for both mainstream schools and high needs will total £58.8 billion in 2024/25, the highest ever level in real terms per pupil. After accounting for the new pay offers in 2023, the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that school funding is still growing faster than school costs.
In addition to this core revenue funding, schools receive funding through a number of separate streams, including: the pupil premium, worth £2.9 billion in 2023/24 to support disadvantaged pupils; Universal Infant Free School Meals funding; and the recovery premium and the National Tutoring Programme to support education recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Department provides these increases to school revenue budgets so that schools can cover cost increases in the year ahead, including to teacher pay.
The Department also has a capital budget of £7 billion for 2023/24, which funds a range of programmes for schools, such as the school rebuilding programme. Information about this particular programme is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-rebuilding-programme.
In February 2023, the Department set out its best assessment of teachers’ pay affordability to the School Teachers’ Review Body, so that they could make an informed independent decision on the pay award. The Department’s approach reflected some of the continued uncertainty around areas like energy costs, as this is a particularly important consideration this year. The written evidence acknowledged that there were circumstances where a pay award in excess of 3.5% might become affordable, on average, for schools. In particular, if energy prices drop significantly. This would provide scope for additional spending in areas which will further benefit pupils, including a higher pay award.
In March, the Government offered teachers a £1,000 payment on top of this year's pay rise, a commitment to cut workload by five hours per week, and a headline pay increase of 4.5% for next year. The offer included further funding of around £620 million in 2023/24, including a grant of £530 million for the one-off payment, as set out here: https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2023/03/28/teacher-strikes-latest-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-teacher-pay-offer/.
By taking into account the Government’s most up-to-date assumptions for both energy prices and support staff pay for 2023/24, it calculates that a 4% teacher pay award should be affordable within existing funding. This includes the overall £3.5 billion funding increase schools are seeing this year, thanks to the additional £2 billion funding announced at the 2022 Autumn Statement. The Government’s judgement of the affordability of teacher pay increases is, as usual, based on national figures, which equate to the position for an average school.
The additional £620 million offered as part of the pay offer would have covered the remaining 0.5% of the 4.5% pay offer, meaning that the pay offer would have been fully funded as per the Department’s national calculations. The Office for Statistics Regulation has confirmed that the Department has set out how it has reached this conclusion transparently, in line with its regulatory guidance on statements about public funding.
Following unions’ rejection of the offer, the teachers’ pay award for 2023 will now be decided through the independent pay review body process, as usual. The Department’s position remains that a 4% teacher pay award should be affordable, nationally, from the funding increases already promised to schools.
As usual, schools should plan for how teacher pay awards could be managed within this existing funding. It would be sensible for schools to consider the range of possible scenarios on pay that might materialise and what the implications would be for their individual school.