Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she plans to take to ensure the safety valve programme supports SEND services in York.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Safety Valve programme is designed to improve special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) services by making the very best use of resources to deliver the support that children and young people need.
The agreements, based on proposals put forward by each local authority, hold local authorities to account for doing so in the most effective and sustainable way for the benefit of children and young people.
The last few years have shown that increased spend does not automatically equate to better outcomes for children and young people; running systems more effectively does. Safety Valve plans generally place emphasis on improving the availability of support in and to mainstream schools, including increasing early access to support, building parental confidence in the system and increasing the availability of local provision. It is only through taking these steps and through the genuine collaboration of all partners locally that high needs systems can be delivered effectively and sustainably for the future.
City of York Council made a Safety Valve agreement in 2021, with the department contributing £17.1 million. The authority agreed to reform their high needs system such that they would subsequently reach a positive in-year balance on its Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) and eliminate its cumulative deficit by the end of the agreement in 2025/26, while continuing to deliver for children and young people with SEND. City of York Council is on track to meet the deficit reduction targets set out in the agreement both for the current reporting year and the lifetime of the plan.
The department continues to provide City of York Council with support through the Safety Valve programme via regular contact with department officials, SEND advisors and financial advisors.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the findings in the report by Action for Children in their report entitled Above and beyond, published on 25 April 2024 on the number of children that experience barriers to their education due to issues outside school, what steps her Department is taking to provide (a) early and (b) timely help to affected families.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government recognises the importance of providing early and timely help for children to support them to achieve their full potential at school so that they can thrive in adulthood.
At the last spending review, the department announced over £1 billion toward programmes to improve early help services from birth to adulthood, including delivering on Family Hubs and helping families facing multiple disadvantage through the Supporting Families and Holiday Activities and Food programmes.
The department’s statutory guidance, titled ‘Working together to safeguard children’, which was updated in 2023, confirms the expectation that local areas should have a range of evidence-based services available to provide early support for children and families who need it.
In ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’, the department announced plans to build on the strengths of early help services through the implementation of Family Help. In the Families First for Children Pathfinder, the department is investigating how multi-disciplinary family help teams can provide targeted support to help children and families overcome challenges at the earliest opportunity.
The department is spending more on children’s mental health services than ever before and working across government to ensure partnerships working across different sectors are delivering for children who need support.
The department is also continuing to roll out Mental Health Support Teams in education settings and supporting schools and colleges to train senior mental health leads, ensuring that as many young people as possible have access to the support they need.
Up to an additional £2.3 billion of additional funding a year since 2018/19 has been allocated to expand and transform mental health services. This is with the aim that 345,000 more children and young people will have been able to access NHS-funded mental health support by March 2024.
The department is making the ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ guidance statutory from September 2024. This sets out how schools, local authorities and other services need to work together to support pupils at risk of poor attendance and how support provided to these families is consistent across the country.
The department’s package of wide-ranging reforms designed to support schools to improve attendance means there were 440,000 fewer children persistently absent or not attending in 2022/23 compared to 2021/22.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
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 findings in the report by Action for Children in their report entitled Above and beyond, published on 25 April 2024, on the number of children that experience barriers to their education due to issues outside school.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government recognises the importance of providing early and timely help for children to support them to achieve their full potential at school so that they can thrive in adulthood.
At the last spending review, the department announced over £1 billion toward programmes to improve early help services from birth to adulthood, including delivering on Family Hubs and helping families facing multiple disadvantage through the Supporting Families and Holiday Activities and Food programmes.
The department’s statutory guidance, titled ‘Working together to safeguard children’, which was updated in 2023, confirms the expectation that local areas should have a range of evidence-based services available to provide early support for children and families who need it.
In ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’, the department announced plans to build on the strengths of early help services through the implementation of Family Help. In the Families First for Children Pathfinder, the department is investigating how multi-disciplinary family help teams can provide targeted support to help children and families overcome challenges at the earliest opportunity.
The department is spending more on children’s mental health services than ever before and working across government to ensure partnerships working across different sectors are delivering for children who need support.
The department is also continuing to roll out Mental Health Support Teams in education settings and supporting schools and colleges to train senior mental health leads, ensuring that as many young people as possible have access to the support they need.
Up to an additional £2.3 billion of additional funding a year since 2018/19 has been allocated to expand and transform mental health services. This is with the aim that 345,000 more children and young people will have been able to access NHS-funded mental health support by March 2024.
The department is making the ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ guidance statutory from September 2024. This sets out how schools, local authorities and other services need to work together to support pupils at risk of poor attendance and how support provided to these families is consistent across the country.
The department’s package of wide-ranging reforms designed to support schools to improve attendance means there were 440,000 fewer children persistently absent or not attending in 2022/23 compared to 2021/22.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on steps to help improve boys' mental health.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Secretary of State for Education and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care meet regularly to discuss a variety of issues, including children’s mental health.
Mental health issues can have a long-lasting effect and it is important that boys are equipped to look after their own wellbeing and receive support when they need it. The department has taken steps to ensure schools can support all pupils with mental health and wellbeing and, within that, make sure they are reaching boys. The department works closely with the Department for Health and Social Care on delivery of shared commitments in the Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision Green Paper, including the department’s offer of senior mental health lead training for all schools and colleges and the continued rollout of Mental Health Support Teams.
To tackle any stigma boys may feel in relation to seeking or offering help, the department has made mental health and wellbeing, and the tackling of gender stereotypes, a compulsory part of the curriculum for all schools. Curriculum content on respectful relationships covers stereotypes of masculinity and femininity, and content on mental wellbeing includes knowing how to talk about emotions accurately and sensitively.
The department is also looking at improving access to wider activities that can help boys to develop supportive relationships and social skills and support their wellbeing.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that the cost of childcare is affordable for single parent families.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is providing over £4.1 billion by the 2027/28 financial year to fund 30 hours of free childcare per week (38 weeks per year) for working parents with children aged 9 months to 3 years in England. This will remove one of the biggest barriers to parents working by vastly increasing the amount of free childcare that working families can access. This is set to save working families using the full 30 funded hours up to £6,900 per year from when their child is nine months until they are five years old by September next year.
Already, hundreds of thousands of children aged 3 and 4 are registered for a 30-hour place, which can save eligible working parents up to £6,000 per child per year. Expanding this entitlement will help even more eligible working parents with the cost of childcare and make a real difference to the lives of those families.
To be eligible for the expanded 30 hours entitlement, as with the current 30 hours offer, parents will need to earn the equivalent of 16 hours a week at national minimum wage or living wage (£183 per week/ £9,518 per year in 2024/2025), and less than £100,000 adjusted net income per year. For families with two parents, both must be working to meet the criteria, unless one is receiving certain benefits. In a single-parent household, the single parent must meet the threshold. This offer aims to support parents to return to work or to work more hours if they wish.
In addition to the expanded entitlements, the government has also taken action to support parents on Universal Credit with childcare costs upfront when they need it, rather than in arrears. The department has increased support for these parents by increasing the childcare cost maximum amounts to £950 for one child and £1630 for two children.
Tax-Free Childcare remains available for working parents of children aged 0 to 11, or up to 17 for eligible disabled children. This can save parents up to £2,000 per year, or up to £4,000 for eligible children with disabilities and has the same income criteria as 30 hours free childcare.
The department is committed to improving the cost, choice, and availability of childcare and government funding schemes are designed to be flexible enough to support families’ different situations.
For the 2024/25 financial year, the department’s funding rates for the York local authority will be £10.30 per hour for under 2s, £7.59 per hour for the 2 year old entitlements and £5.20 per hour for 3 and 4 year olds.
The government is also investing £289 million in a new wraparound childcare programme. The government’s ambition is for all parents of primary school children who need it to be able to access childcare in their local area from 8am to 6pm. Parents will still be expected to pay to access this provision, but support will be available to eligible parents through Universal Credit childcare and Tax-Free Childcare.
Parents should expect to see an expansion in the availability of wraparound care from September 2024, with every parent who needs it able to access term-time wraparound childcare by September 2026. The department is also providing over £200 million a year for the continuation of the Holiday Activities and Food programme and the department is investing a transformational £560 million in youth services in England over the next 3 years. This is part of a wider package the government has provided long term, to support young people facing the greatest challenges.
The department will also continue to monitor the sufficiency of childcare places across the sector. The department’s Childcare and Early Years Provider Survey shows that both the number of places available and the workforce has increased since 2022.
Local authorities are responsible for ensuring that the provision of childcare is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents in their area. Where local authorities report sufficiency challenges, the department discusses what action the local authority is taking to address those issues and where needed support the local authority with any specific requirements through our childcare sufficiency support contract.
The department has regular contact with each local authority in England about their sufficiency of childcare and any issues they are facing.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the availability of flexible childcare for single parent families.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is providing over £4.1 billion by the 2027/28 financial year to fund 30 hours of free childcare per week (38 weeks per year) for working parents with children aged 9 months to 3 years in England. This will remove one of the biggest barriers to parents working by vastly increasing the amount of free childcare that working families can access. This is set to save working families using the full 30 funded hours up to £6,900 per year from when their child is nine months until they are five years old by September next year.
Already, hundreds of thousands of children aged 3 and 4 are registered for a 30-hour place, which can save eligible working parents up to £6,000 per child per year. Expanding this entitlement will help even more eligible working parents with the cost of childcare and make a real difference to the lives of those families.
To be eligible for the expanded 30 hours entitlement, as with the current 30 hours offer, parents will need to earn the equivalent of 16 hours a week at national minimum wage or living wage (£183 per week/ £9,518 per year in 2024/2025), and less than £100,000 adjusted net income per year. For families with two parents, both must be working to meet the criteria, unless one is receiving certain benefits. In a single-parent household, the single parent must meet the threshold. This offer aims to support parents to return to work or to work more hours if they wish.
In addition to the expanded entitlements, the government has also taken action to support parents on Universal Credit with childcare costs upfront when they need it, rather than in arrears. The department has increased support for these parents by increasing the childcare cost maximum amounts to £950 for one child and £1630 for two children.
Tax-Free Childcare remains available for working parents of children aged 0 to 11, or up to 17 for eligible disabled children. This can save parents up to £2,000 per year, or up to £4,000 for eligible children with disabilities and has the same income criteria as 30 hours free childcare.
The department is committed to improving the cost, choice, and availability of childcare and government funding schemes are designed to be flexible enough to support families’ different situations.
For the 2024/25 financial year, the department’s funding rates for the York local authority will be £10.30 per hour for under 2s, £7.59 per hour for the 2 year old entitlements and £5.20 per hour for 3 and 4 year olds.
The government is also investing £289 million in a new wraparound childcare programme. The government’s ambition is for all parents of primary school children who need it to be able to access childcare in their local area from 8am to 6pm. Parents will still be expected to pay to access this provision, but support will be available to eligible parents through Universal Credit childcare and Tax-Free Childcare.
Parents should expect to see an expansion in the availability of wraparound care from September 2024, with every parent who needs it able to access term-time wraparound childcare by September 2026. The department is also providing over £200 million a year for the continuation of the Holiday Activities and Food programme and the department is investing a transformational £560 million in youth services in England over the next 3 years. This is part of a wider package the government has provided long term, to support young people facing the greatest challenges.
The department will also continue to monitor the sufficiency of childcare places across the sector. The department’s Childcare and Early Years Provider Survey shows that both the number of places available and the workforce has increased since 2022.
Local authorities are responsible for ensuring that the provision of childcare is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents in their area. Where local authorities report sufficiency challenges, the department discusses what action the local authority is taking to address those issues and where needed support the local authority with any specific requirements through our childcare sufficiency support contract.
The department has regular contact with each local authority in England about their sufficiency of childcare and any issues they are facing.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to her Department's consultation outcome entitled Children's social care: stable homes, built on love, published on 21 September 2023, what steps she is taking to monitor the implementation of the recommendations of that consultation by local authorities.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is committed to laying the foundations for a comprehensive and long-term reform plan to children’s social care over the two years immediately following the publication of its implementation strategy ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’. The department will be refreshing its strategy at the end of this point. The department is halfway through this first phase of reform, and has made significant progress on many of the commitments made in the strategy.
In December 2023, the department published the first national kinship care strategy ‘Championing Kinship Care’, a ‘Children’s Social Care National Framework’, a revised statutory guidance ‘Working together to safeguard children’ and a data strategy.
Through these publications, the department is monitoring the implementation of its reform programme and has set out how local authorities’ and partners’ roles and responsibilities will change through new national expectations, and further explained their role in delivering ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’.
The ‘test and learn’ approach the department is taking through its pathfinder pilots will ensure that the department will find the most efficient models of delivery, providing the best possible outcomes for children and families. When the department comes to expand and roll out programmes across more local authorities’ areas, it wants to ensure reform delivery is supported by the evidence that it works.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to her Department's consultation outcome entitled Children's social care: stable homes, built on love, published on 21 September 2023, if she will expand the implementation of that consultation outcome to more local authority areas.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is committed to laying the foundations for a comprehensive and long-term reform plan to children’s social care over the two years immediately following the publication of its implementation strategy ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’. The department will be refreshing its strategy at the end of this point. The department is halfway through this first phase of reform, and has made significant progress on many of the commitments made in the strategy.
In December 2023, the department published the first national kinship care strategy ‘Championing Kinship Care’, a ‘Children’s Social Care National Framework’, a revised statutory guidance ‘Working together to safeguard children’ and a data strategy.
Through these publications, the department is monitoring the implementation of its reform programme and has set out how local authorities’ and partners’ roles and responsibilities will change through new national expectations, and further explained their role in delivering ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’.
The ‘test and learn’ approach the department is taking through its pathfinder pilots will ensure that the department will find the most efficient models of delivery, providing the best possible outcomes for children and families. When the department comes to expand and roll out programmes across more local authorities’ areas, it wants to ensure reform delivery is supported by the evidence that it works.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has had discussions with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on steps to help improve levels of health literacy in school children.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Pupils need to know how to be safe and healthy, and how to manage their academic, personal, and social lives in a positive way. That is why the department has made health education compulsory in all state-funded schools in England alongside making Relationships Education (for primary pupils) and Relationships and Sex Education (for secondary pupils) compulsory, collectively known as Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE).
The department has also published implementation guidance and teacher training modules covering all the RSHE topics to help schools develop their curricula and teach subjects confidently and effectively, which is available here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/teaching-about-relationships-sex-and-health. Topics in the RSHE curriculum at both primary and secondary include health and prevention, healthy eating, mental wellbeing and physical health and fitness.
The department is reviewing the RSHE statutory guidance this year, working with colleagues in the Department of Health and Social care to do so. The department is taking a comprehensive, evidence-based approach in deciding what should be included and will consider whether the current content on health education could be amended or expanded to enhance the health literacy of pupils. The department intends to publish revised guidance later in 2024.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help ensure childcare provision is available for (a) night workers and (b) shift workers working anti-social hours.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is providing over £4.1 billion by the 2027/28 financial year to fund 30 hours of free childcare per week (38 weeks per year) for working parents with children aged nine months to three years in England. This will remove one of the biggest barriers to parents working by vastly increasing the amount of free childcare that working families can access. This is set to save working families who use the full 30 funded hours up to £6,900 per year from when their child is nine months until they are five years old by September next year.
Already, hundreds of thousands of children aged three and four are registered for a 30-hour place, which can save eligible working parents up to £6,000 per child per year. Expanding this entitlement will help even more eligible working parents with the cost of childcare and make a real difference to the lives of those families.
To be eligible for the expanded 30 hours entitlement, as with the current 30 hours offer, parents will need to earn the equivalent of 16 hours a week at national minimum wage or living wage, which is £183 per week or £9,518 per year in 2024-2025, and less than £100,000 adjusted net income per year. For families with two parents, both must be working to meet the criteria, unless one is receiving certain benefits. In a single-parent household, the single parent must meet the threshold. This offer aims to support parents to return to work or to work more hours, if they wish.
In addition to the expanded entitlements, the government has also taken action to support parents on Universal Credit with childcare costs upfront when they need it, rather than in arrears. The department has increased support for these parents by increasing the childcare cost maximum amounts to £950 for one child and £1629 for two children.
Tax-Free Childcare remains available for working parents of children aged 0-11, or up to 17 for eligible disabled children. This can save parents up to £2,000 per year, or up to £4,000 for eligible children with disabilities and has the same income criteria as 30 hours free childcare.
The department is committed to improving the cost, choice, and availability of childcare and government funding schemes are designed to be flexible enough to support families’ different situations, including parents who are night workers and shift workers.
The government is investing £289 million in a new wraparound childcare programme. The government’s ambition is for all parents of primary school children who need it to be able to access childcare in their local area from 8am to 6pm. Parents will still be expected to pay to access this provision but support will be available to eligible parents through Universal Credit childcare and Tax Free Childcare.
Parents should expect to see an expansion in the availability of wraparound care from September 2024, with every parent who needs it able to access term-time wraparound childcare by September 2026. The department is also providing over £200 million a year for the continuation of the Holiday Activities and Food programme and the department is investing a transformational £560 million in youth services in England over the next three years. This is part of a wider package the government has provided long term to support young people facing the greatest challenges.
The department will also continue to monitor the sufficiency of childcare places across the sector. The department’s Childcare and Early Years Provider Survey shows that both the number of places available and the workforce has increased since 2022.
Local authorities are responsible for ensuring that the provision of childcare is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents in their area. Where local authorities report sufficiency challenges, the department discusses what action the local authority is taking to address those issues and where needed support the local authority with any specific requirements through its childcare sufficiency support contract.
The department has regular contact with each local authority in England about their sufficiency of childcare and any issues they are facing.