Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of provision of respite care for children with severe and multiple additional behavioural needs; and what steps his Department is taking to improve the level provision of such care.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Since 2011, local authorities have been under a duty to provide a range of short breaks services, sometimes known as respite care, which can provide support for children with a range of needs including severe and behavioural needs. Local authorities are required to publish a local short breaks services statement showing what services are available, how they are responding to the needs of local parents and carers, and how they can be accessed, including any eligibility criteria.
While responsibility for funding short breaks rests with local authorities, the Department for Education has offered support and to help make surelocal authorities meet their statutory requirements; has funded innovative grants that promote best practice for delivering services; and continues to consider how we can best support local authorities who are working to deliver sustainable short breaks provision.
The government is able to oversee how much local authorities have planned to spend on short breaks provision through authorities’ annual section 251 returns. This information can be found at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/section-251-2016-to-2017.
Departmental surveys such as the Children’s Services Omnibus also gather information on Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) services provided by local authorities, including short breaks.
There are also opportunities through the new Ofsted and Care Quality Commission SEND inspections framework for local areas to consider how well they are providing for the education, health and care needs of those with SEND, including their need for short breaks services. A thematic ‘one year on’ report published by the two inspectorates in October 2017 found that “children and young people who have SEND and their families typically had good access to high-quality short breaks” (full publication here: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/652694/local_area_SEND_inspections_one__year__on.pdf).
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the National Education Union report on Sexism in schools published in December 2017, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the relationships and sex education curriculum is designed to prevent sexism and sexual harassment among children and young people at all key stages.
Answered by Nick Gibb
On 14 December 2017 the Department published advice for schools on how to prevent and respond to reports of sexual violence and sexual harassment between children: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sexual-violence-and-sexual-harassment-between-children-in-schools-and-colleges.
The Department wants to ensure that all pupils gain the knowledge and skills they need to keep themselves safe and develop healthy, respectful and positive relationships for adult life in modern Britain. The Department is actively engaging with a wide range of stakeholders to develop the regulations and guidance on Relationships Education and Relationships and Sex Education; and we launched two calls for evidence on 19 December, one for adults and one for young people, to seek views on the curriculum content for these subjects. The calls for evidence close on 12 February and can be accessed via this link: https://consult.education.gov.uk/life-skills/pshe-rse-call-for-evidence/.
We envisage draft regulations and the guidance will be published for consultation later this year. The regulations will then be laid in Parliament.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to support providers of childcare who find themselves in financial difficulties.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
The department is making a record investment in childcare, by 2020 spending around £6 billion per year, investing £1 billion a year to deliver 30 hours of free childcare and increasing our hourly funding rates.
The department has awarded grants to the National Day Nurseries Association and the Professional Association of Childcare and Early Years to develop new business sustainability resources for childcare providers, which are available online at https://www.earlyyearsbusinesszone.org.uk/ and https://www.pacey.org.uk/business/ and has made a further package of support materials available, which can be found here https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/early-years-business-sustainability.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, on what basis journalists can access identifying and sensitive health data about children's special educational needs from the national pupil database; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Any request to use National Pupil Database data is only processed if it complies with the requirements of the Education (Individual Pupil Information) (Prescribed Persons) (England) Regulations 2009, made under section 537A(4) of the Education Act 1996 and the Data Protection Act 1998. As part of the approval process officials, including senior data experts and legal advisers, assess each application for legality, proportionality and security. The panel must also be satisfied that the access requested is ethical and of value to education.
If journalists are able to meet these standards, their request will be considered.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what legal advice her Department has received on meeting data protection requirements to provide information to parents and children about the collection of children's data for the national pupils database.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department seeks legal advice as and when necessary in relation to data collection and usage.
The Department informs parents and children about how their data is used via GOV.UK. The Department also recognises that for many parents their main point of contact is with schools. Schools are data controllers in their own right, and must take responsibility for ensuring that parents and pupils are aware of what data is collected and why. The Department helps schools to do that by publishing suggested wording for schools’ privacy notices. These notices include links to the department’s website on GOV.UK and are regularly updated to keep in line with best practice, with the importance of them regularly communicated to schools.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what legal advice her Department has received on meeting data protection requirements for data held on the national pupil database that relates to former pupils with whom schools have no contact.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department seeks legal advice as and when necessary.
The Department has legislative powers in section 537A of the Education Act 1996 to collect information on individual pupils. Pursuant to section 537A (9) ‘individual pupil information’ means information relating to and identifying individual pupils or former pupils at any school within section 537A (1).
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many children's personal confidential identifying data from the national pupil database was given to journalists working for the Telegraph in 2013; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department may legally share data from the National Pupil Database with third parties, using powers set out in Section 537A of the Education Act 1997 and the Education (Individual Pupil Information) (Prescribed Persons) (England) Regulations 2009. Organisations requesting access under those powers must show how it will be used to promote pupils' education, through evidence or research.
As part of the approvals process, officials, including legal experts and senior civil servants with data expertise, assess the application for public benefit, proportionality (ensuring the minimum amount of data is used to meet the purpose), legal underpinning, and that the strict information security standards we enforce have been satisfied.
The purpose of the request by the Daily Telegraph was to provide more detailed information for parents about the relative achievements of different schools in a range of subjects for different types of pupils. This request did not contain any data items that are sensitive or have potential to allow children to be identified. It did not contain key identifiers of name, address, postcode, date of birth or reference numbers.
The purpose of the request from BBC Newsnight was to assess progress in reducing geographical, social and economic disparities in education performance. This request contained some sensitive data items (language, ethnicity, primary special educational needs type, and indicators of looked after status or service child status). It did not contain key identifiers of name, address, postcode, date of birth or reference numbers.
The Department does not maintain records of the number of children included in historic data extracts.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many children's personal, confidential identifying data from the national pupil database was given to BBC Newsnight in 2014; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department may legally share data from the National Pupil Database with third parties, using powers set out in Section 537A of the Education Act 1997 and the Education (Individual Pupil Information) (Prescribed Persons) (England) Regulations 2009. Organisations requesting access under those powers must show how it will be used to promote pupils' education, through evidence or research.
As part of the approvals process, officials, including legal experts and senior civil servants with data expertise, assess the application for public benefit, proportionality (ensuring the minimum amount of data is used to meet the purpose), legal underpinning, and that the strict information security standards we enforce have been satisfied.
The purpose of the request by the Daily Telegraph was to provide more detailed information for parents about the relative achievements of different schools in a range of subjects for different types of pupils. This request did not contain any data items that are sensitive or have potential to allow children to be identified. It did not contain key identifiers of name, address, postcode, date of birth or reference numbers.
The purpose of the request from BBC Newsnight was to assess progress in reducing geographical, social and economic disparities in education performance. This request contained some sensitive data items (language, ethnicity, primary special educational needs type, and indicators of looked after status or service child status). It did not contain key identifiers of name, address, postcode, date of birth or reference numbers.
The Department does not maintain records of the number of children included in historic data extracts.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the legal basis is for her Department's collection of data on pregnancy, health and mental health from January 2018 to inform the Alternative Provision Census.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
The Education (Information About Children in Alternative Provision) (England) Regulations 2007, made in exercise of the powers conferred by sections 537A and 537B of the Education Act 1996 provide the statutory basis for the collection of data about children in alternative provision.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department conducted a privacy impact assessment about the collection of data on pregnancy, health and mental health for the Alternative Provision Census 2018.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Where a child of compulsory school age would not receive suitable education because of illness, exclusion or any other reason, local authorities have a duty to provide suitable ‘alternative provision’ (AP). Although the AP provider understands the reason for the child’s placement, as does the responsible local authority, nationally very little is known about these AP placements and the children who need them. This is fundamental to understanding the effectiveness of the AP system to better target policy interventions and improve the quality of education provided to these children.
Conducting a privacy impact assessment is not a legal requirement of the Data Protection Act. The changes to the AP census relate to information already required (and held) by local authorities during the process of commissioning placements in AP and do not require the collection of any additional information by local authorities or AP providers from the individuals. The AP census is a long-standing data collection with established protocols and processes in place for the handling, collection and disclosure of individual level information. As the AP census already collects a range of characteristic information about individuals, these additional items of information (about the same individuals) do not present any new privacy risks over and above those already present so a formal privacy impact assessment was not completed.