Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans he has to replace the Residential Care Leadership Board; and for what reasons that Board was abolished.
Answered by Vicky Ford
The Residential Care Leadership Board is no longer being convened because the board’s remit of responding to recommendations made in Sir Martin Narey’s 2016 Review of Residential Children’s Care, has been successfully completed. The department is taking steps to ensure that we draw on sectoral expertise through a range of different forums to address current issues affecting the sector, not least in our response to the COVID-19 outbreak.
The government has committed to undertaking a bold, broad and independently led care review. This will launch as soon as possible and will support improvements in the children’s social care system.
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many adoptions have (a) been completed and (b) broken down in each year since 2010.
Answered by Vicky Ford
The department does not hold information on the number of all children in England who are adopted.
The latest figures on the number of children in England who have been adopted from care are published in table H1 of the statistical release, entitled ’National tables: Children Looked after in England including adoptions 2018-19’, which is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2018-to-2019. Figures for the reporting year ending 31 March 2020 will be published later this year.
The department does not collect information on adoptions that were disrupted. National figures on numbers of children who started to be looked after, and who had a previous permanence arrangement, including adoption orders, are available in table C1 of the above release. However, these figures were collected for the first time in 2014 and should be treated with caution. The information is based on self-declaration and, for several children, the previous permanence arrangement is not known.
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the barriers to increasing the number of adoptions.
Answered by Vicky Ford
The department assess and address barriers to increasing adoption numbers on a regular basis. One barrier has been in recruiting the right adopters for the children waiting. To address this, the government is investing £1 million in adopter recruitment during the 2020-21 financial year, with a focus on generating an increase in people of all backgrounds coming forward to adopt children who wait the longest. This includes funding the cross-sector national recruitment campaign, #YouCanAdopt. Launched in September 2020, a key aspect of this campaign is its inclusivity. It aims to break down perceived barriers to adoption, encouraging more adopters of diverse backgrounds to step forward.
The COVID-19 outbreak has introduced new challenges for adoption. Early in the outbreak, we introduced regulatory flexibilities to ensure adoption processes could continue despite the lockdown restrictions and some of these changes remain in place. For example, this includes the flexibility relating to health assessments for prospective adopters. This allows agencies to proceed to stage 2 of the assessment process without a health check, as long as those checks are completed before the end of that stage. Where new challenges have arisen with the announcement of a second lockdown, further regulatory changes have been introduced. This includes exemptions to allow adoption introductions to continue during the new lockdown, alleviating delays for children moving to their new loving homes.
The COVID-19 outbreak has also introduced barriers in progressing adoption cases through the courts. However, adoption is included in the list of priorities for the courts, which have been encouraged to make use of hybrid courts (a combination of virtual and physical hearings) to progress cases where possible. The department continues to work closely with the Ministry of Justice, the judiciary, The Association of Directors for Children’s Services and Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service on these issues.
We know that some prospective adopters have concerns about what support will be available to them. The core Adoption Support Fund (ASF) has provided £177 million since 2015 to help pay for essential therapeutic services for over 62,000 adoptive and eligible special guardianship families. The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Adoption and Permanence published a report in July 2019, and our own independent evaluations of the Fund have concluded that the ASF was having a positive transformative effect on the lives of children and families.
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what was the cost of the free school meal vouchers issued over the summer holiday; and what was the value of those vouchers not redeemed.
Answered by Vicky Ford
Our national voucher scheme launched on 31 March. Edenred, the supplier, has reported that over £380 million worth of voucher codes had been redeemed into supermarket eGift cards by families, as of 19 August, and over 20,350 schools had placed orders for the scheme as of 28 July. This covers both term time and holiday provision. Schools also had the option to order via local voucher schemes and claim costs back through the exceptional costs fund. The free school meal (FSM) voucher scheme has now closed. Schools and their kitchens are open, so normal FSM provision has resumed, enabling children to have a nutritious healthy meal at school. We do not hold data relating to the value of vouchers that have not been redeemed and such a figure would still be subject to change. The expiry date on an eGift card varies depending on the retailer (the shortest term being 12 months).
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, which (a) schools and (b) higher education establishments (i) host a Confucius Institute and (ii) are in receipt of funds from the Chinese Government.
Answered by Michelle Donelan - Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
Higher education establishments are independent, autonomous organisations and the government does not collect data of this sort. A number of UK higher education providers host and publicise their Confucius Institutes and are responsible for ensuring their partnerships are managed appropriately with the right due diligence in place.
The government does not collect data on which education establishments host a Confucius institute.
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, for what reasons the results of Reception Baseline Assessments will not be shared with the school attended by the pupil until that child is about to leave primary school.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department has always been clear that the reception baseline assessment (RBA) is not a diagnostic assessment and should not be used to track or group individual children or hold early years settings to account. Data gathered from the assessment will only be used to create a baseline for school-level progress measures and will not be shared with schools, teachers, or parents. However, teachers will receive a series of short, narrative statements on how each child did at that time, which can be used to inform teaching.
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of children with Education Health Care Plans (a) were attending primary school in the latest period for which data is available before reception, Year 1 and Year 6 classes were reopened and (b) are attending primary school presently.
Answered by Vicky Ford
The latest data on the attendance of children with an education, health and care (EHC) plan in educational establishments since 23 March was published on Tuesday 9 June and covers data up to Thursday 4 June. The data is available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-attendance-in-education-and-early-years-settings.
The data is collected from individual education establishments and the published figures include estimates for non-response.
An estimate of the number of children with EHC plans who have a parent designated as a critical worker has not been made.
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the number of children with Education, Health and Care plans who have a parent designated as a key worker.
Answered by Vicky Ford
The latest data on the attendance of children with an education, health and care (EHC) plan in educational establishments since 23 March was published on Tuesday 9 June and covers data up to Thursday 4 June. The data is available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-attendance-in-education-and-early-years-settings.
The data is collected from individual education establishments and the published figures include estimates for non-response.
An estimate of the number of children with EHC plans who have a parent designated as a critical worker has not been made.
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the equality implications of his Department's proposals on unregulated provision for children in care and care leavers for (a) disabled children and (b) children from black and minority ethnic communities; and whether his Department has plans to publish an equality impact assessment of those proposals.
Answered by Vicky Ford
As part of the current consultation on reforms to unregulated provision for children in care and care leavers the department is considering equality implications of the proposals. An equality impact assessment will be published as part of the government’s response to the consultation.
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, who the members of the working group on draft quality standards for unregulated supported accommodation for children in care and leaving care are.
Answered by Vicky Ford
As part of the public consultation on reforms to unregulated provision for children in care and care leavers, a task and finish group has been established. It is chaired by Sir Alan Wood and has been asked to:
1. Support the development and drafting of new national standards for semi-independent provision for children in care;
2. Further develop our evidence regarding the use of these placements for U16s; and
3. Advise on what should be taken account of when considering the implementation of the results of the consultation.
Those asked to attend the group represent some of those directly involved in the delivery of the proposed reforms – including providers, commissioners and inspectors as well as those who advocate for young people. This includes representatives from:
Throughout the consultation we are seeking the views of as many people as possible who are affected by the proposed reforms. This group is one way of achieving that. We are continuing to work with children and young people, local authorities, social workers and providers to seek their views and discuss the proposals.
The consultation is open until 8 April 2020 and we welcome responses from anyone who wishes to contribute. The task and finish group’s work, including supporting development of new minimum standards, will be informed by consultation responses and it will report after the consultation has closed.