Asked by: Bambos Charalambous (Labour - Southgate and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if the Government will reconsider its decision not to conduct an assessment of the academic publishing industry's pricing and licensing practices for ebooks in order to improve access to ebooks for schools and universities during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Michelle Donelan
The government brought forward the zero rate of VAT on e-publications from December. The extension of the zero rate of VAT has been introduced to provide consistency in approach between certain physical and digital publications. This will make e-publications more affordable for schools and universities. The government keeps all taxes under review, including VAT. No assessment of the effect of the academic publishing industry’s pricing and licensing practices for ebooks is currently planned.
On 1 October, the department announced a further remote education support package, to help schools and further education (FE) providers meet the remote education expectations set out in guidance and direction.
Many elements of the support package are already in place and more will be available over the coming months to schools and FE providers. These can be accessed through the remote education service on GOV.UK at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/remote-education-during-coronavirus-covid-19.
The support package includes access to the right technology to deliver remote education, peer to peer training on how to use this effectively, and practical tools, good practice guidance and school-led webinars. This adds to existing support including the resources available from Oak National Academy, which provides video lessons across a broad range of subjects for every year group from reception to year 11: https://www.thenational.academy/. Oak National Academy will remain a free optional resource for the academic year 2020/21.
As part of over £195 million invested to support remote education and access to online social care, the department is making over 340,000 laptops and tablets available this term to support disadvantaged children whose face-to-face education may be disrupted.
Asked by: Bambos Charalambous (Labour - Southgate and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when his Department plans to disburse the additional funding and grants for costs associated with the covid-19 outbreak claimed for by (a) Eversely Primary School and (b) other schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department is providing additional funding to schools, on top of existing budgets, to cover unavoidable costs incurred between March and July due to the COVID-19 outbreak that cannot be met from their existing resources.
Schools have been eligible to claim for: increased premises related costs associated with keeping schools open over the Easter and summer half term holidays; support for free school meals for eligible children who are not in school, where schools are not using the national voucher scheme; and additional cleaning costs required due to confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases, over and above the cost of existing cleaning arrangements.
The first claims window for the COVID-19 schools fund closed on 21 July. There will be a further opportunity in the autumn for schools to claim for exceptional costs that fell between March and July. This second claims window will be available for schools who were unable to claim in the summer and will be for the same eligible cost categories.
Schools have claimed £104 million against the standard expenditure categories in the fund, as set out above. The Department will be making further payments in the autumn term to schools who either claimed outside of the standard categories or whose claims exceeded the cost limit, following an assessment of their claims. Along with other schools who made a claim outside of the standard expenditure categories, Eversley Primary School, Enfield, will receive a payment in the autumn term which will reflect the outcome of that assessment.
Asked by: Bambos Charalambous (Labour - Southgate and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
What recent progress his Department has made on identifying and delivering essential IT equipment to children who need additional support with online learning at home.
Answered by Nick Gibb
We want to do everything we can to support schools and families to continue children’s education while they are at home. We have committed over £100 million to boost remote education, including providing laptops, tablets and internet access for those who need it most.
On Friday 24 April, the Department wrote to local authorities, trusts and other relevant organisations overseeing schools and children’s social care outlining the process for requesting devices.