Asked by: David Anderson (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when she plans to respond to the letter from the hon. Member for Blaydon of 19 August 2016 on the application of the Apprenticeship Levy in Scotland.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The hon. Member should have received an email response on 14 October, with a hard copy to follow.
Skills policy is devolved, which means that the Scottish Government is responsible for managing apprenticeships in its own territory. This has been the case since the Scotland Act 1998 and UK employers understand that they need to engage with different funding bodies in different parts of the UK. The introduction of the apprenticeship levy in April 2017 will not change this position.
On 12 August, we published detailed proposals on how we will fund apprenticeships in England when the levy is introduced in April 2017. These are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/apprenticeship-changes. We are committed to publishing the final apprenticeship funding policy information for England before the end of October. It will be for the Scottish Government to set out its own plans for funding apprenticeships in Scotland.
Asked by: David Anderson (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will publish the pass rates for the year one phonics screening check by the birth month of the pupils.
Answered by Nick Gibb
We will publish phonics results for Year 1 pupils by month of birth at national level for 2016. The data will be published at the end of September in a statistical first release at: www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-key-stage-1
Asked by: David Anderson (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the affordability to parents who need to purchase new school uniforms as schools change their status and introduce a different uniform.
Answered by Nick Gibb
It is for the governing body to determine a school’s uniform policy, but the Department has issued best practice guidance for all schools on the need to give high priority to the consideration of cost for parents. The guidance is available at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-uniform.
The guidance emphasises the importance of ensuring that uniform is widely available and affordable for parents. It sets out that governing bodies should be able to demonstrate that they have obtained the best value for money from suppliers, and that any savings negotiated with suppliers should be passed on to parents wherever possible. It also makes clear that compulsory branded items should be kept to a minimum; and that schools should avoid frequent changes to the uniform.
Local authorities and academies have discretion within their budgets to provide school clothing grants or offer other help with the cost of school clothing in cases of financial hardship.
In November 2014 the Chancellor and the Business Secretary launched ‘A better deal: Boosting competition to bring down bills for families and firms’ which set out concrete steps the Government is taking to secure rising living standards and create competitive business conditions for firms. This included tackling the cost of school uniforms. The Government wants to ensure that effective competition is used to drive better value for money and will therefore put existing best practice guidance for school uniform supply in England on a statutory footing. This will ensure that schools deliver the best value for parents by avoiding exclusivity arrangements unless regular competitions for suppliers are run.
Asked by: David Anderson (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what financial support is available to parents who are struggling to pay for school uniforms.
Answered by Nick Gibb
It is for the governing body to determine a school’s uniform policy, but the Department has issued best practice guidance for all schools on the need to give high priority to the consideration of cost for parents. The guidance is available at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-uniform.
The guidance emphasises the importance of ensuring that uniform is widely available and affordable for parents. It sets out that governing bodies should be able to demonstrate that they have obtained the best value for money from suppliers, and that any savings negotiated with suppliers should be passed on to parents wherever possible. It also makes clear that compulsory branded items should be kept to a minimum; and that schools should avoid frequent changes to the uniform.
Local authorities and academies have discretion within their budgets to provide school clothing grants or offer other help with the cost of school clothing in cases of financial hardship.
In November 2014 the Chancellor and the Business Secretary launched ‘A better deal: Boosting competition to bring down bills for families and firms’ which set out concrete steps the Government is taking to secure rising living standards and create competitive business conditions for firms. This included tackling the cost of school uniforms. The Government wants to ensure that effective competition is used to drive better value for money and will therefore put existing best practice guidance for school uniform supply in England on a statutory footing. This will ensure that schools deliver the best value for parents by avoiding exclusivity arrangements unless regular competitions for suppliers are run.
Asked by: David Anderson (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many people her Department employs as statisticians.
Answered by Nick Gibb
As of 31st March 2016, the Department employs 129 people as statisticians.