Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of funding for sixth-form colleges to provide extra-curricular activities to develop employability skills.
Answered by Anne Milton
Colleges use their funding to provide study programmes that are tailored to students’ needs and include employability, enrichment and pastoral (EEP) activities as well as teaching time for qualifications. EEP hours can include activities such as development of employability skills, careers advice and guidance, and pastoral support such as mental health support.
Colleges have a requirement in their funding agreements to secure access to independent careers guidance for 16 to 19-year olds. The government’s careers strategy expects colleges to use the benchmarks published by the Gatsby Foundation to develop and improve their careers provision. We have published guidance to set out in detail what colleges are expected to do. The department is not prescribing how each college fulfils the requirement. There is a wide range of support available, and drawing on connections with a network of employers should be a central aspect of the college’s overall careers strategy.
We have recently allocated additional funding to support institutions to develop their capacity to establish work placements, as part of the preparation to deliver T levels. This will have a direct impact on employability. A number of sixth form colleges will receive this funding.
We recognise that colleges cannot act alone to support the mental health of their students and the proposals in our green paper, ‘Transforming Mental Health Provision for Children and Young People’ to provide additional support to schools and colleges will be supported by over £300 million in additional funding.
In addition the department is actively considering the efficiency and resilience of the further education sector, and how far existing and forecast funding and regulatory structures meet the costs of delivering world-class provision.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of funding for sixth-form colleges to provide mental health support.
Answered by Anne Milton
Colleges use their funding to provide study programmes that are tailored to students’ needs and include employability, enrichment and pastoral (EEP) activities as well as teaching time for qualifications. EEP hours can include activities such as development of employability skills, careers advice and guidance, and pastoral support such as mental health support.
Colleges have a requirement in their funding agreements to secure access to independent careers guidance for 16 to 19-year olds. The government’s careers strategy expects colleges to use the benchmarks published by the Gatsby Foundation to develop and improve their careers provision. We have published guidance to set out in detail what colleges are expected to do. The department is not prescribing how each college fulfils the requirement. There is a wide range of support available, and drawing on connections with a network of employers should be a central aspect of the college’s overall careers strategy.
We have recently allocated additional funding to support institutions to develop their capacity to establish work placements, as part of the preparation to deliver T levels. This will have a direct impact on employability. A number of sixth form colleges will receive this funding.
We recognise that colleges cannot act alone to support the mental health of their students and the proposals in our green paper, ‘Transforming Mental Health Provision for Children and Young People’ to provide additional support to schools and colleges will be supported by over £300 million in additional funding.
In addition the department is actively considering the efficiency and resilience of the further education sector, and how far existing and forecast funding and regulatory structures meet the costs of delivering world-class provision.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of funding for sixth-form colleges to provide careers advice.
Answered by Anne Milton
Colleges use their funding to provide study programmes that are tailored to students’ needs and include employability, enrichment and pastoral (EEP) activities as well as teaching time for qualifications. EEP hours can include activities such as development of employability skills, careers advice and guidance, and pastoral support such as mental health support.
Colleges have a requirement in their funding agreements to secure access to independent careers guidance for 16 to 19-year olds. The government’s careers strategy expects colleges to use the benchmarks published by the Gatsby Foundation to develop and improve their careers provision. We have published guidance to set out in detail what colleges are expected to do. The department is not prescribing how each college fulfils the requirement. There is a wide range of support available, and drawing on connections with a network of employers should be a central aspect of the college’s overall careers strategy.
We have recently allocated additional funding to support institutions to develop their capacity to establish work placements, as part of the preparation to deliver T levels. This will have a direct impact on employability. A number of sixth form colleges will receive this funding.
We recognise that colleges cannot act alone to support the mental health of their students and the proposals in our green paper, ‘Transforming Mental Health Provision for Children and Young People’ to provide additional support to schools and colleges will be supported by over £300 million in additional funding.
In addition the department is actively considering the efficiency and resilience of the further education sector, and how far existing and forecast funding and regulatory structures meet the costs of delivering world-class provision.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if his Department will make an assessment of the adequacy of the level of local authority early years funding rates in advance of the start of the next school year.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
By 2019-20 the government will be investing £1 billion a year to increase our hourly funding rates for the free entitlements and delivery of 30 hours of free childcare. This will take the amount the government spends on early years’ education to around £6 billion by 2019-20 – the highest ever amount. These funding rates are based on our ‘Review of Childcare Costs’, which was described as “thorough and wide ranging” by the National Audit Office. This looked at both the current costs of childcare provision and the implications of future cost pressures facing the sector, including the National Living Wage.
We continue to monitor delivery costs of our early years’ entitlements and have commissioned new research to provide us with robust and detailed cost data from a representative sample of early years providers, which will be published in due course. We continue to monitor local authority funding of providers via the collection of data on their annual planned budget.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the Government plans to provide business rates relief to childcare providers.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
We are investing a record amount into the early years sector, spending around £6 billion per year by 2019-20, which includes £1 billion a year to deliver 30 hours of free childcare and increase our hourly funding rates that we introduced in April 2017. The government has also increased Small Business Rate Relief and provided local authorities with funding to support £300 million of discretionary business rates relief. Local authorities are able to use this to support local nurseries.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many meetings he has had with small business owners in the childcare sector in each of the last two years.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State has met with two small business owners in the childcare sector since his appointment on 8 January 2017. My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State and I have visited a range of childcare providers since our appointments and continue to engage regularly with representatives from the sector.