Asked by: David Drew (Labour (Co-op) - Stroud)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to ensure that the procedures for students with dyslexia taking external exams are compliant with the Equality Act 2010.
Answered by Nick Gibb
This is a matter for Ofqual, the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation. I have asked its Chief Regulator, Sally Collier, to write to the hon. Member for Stroud and copy of her reply will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Asked by: David Drew (Labour (Co-op) - Stroud)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he plans to make an assessment of the adequacy of support provided to registered disabled students (a) at and (b) about to enter further or higher education.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
Higher education providers (HEPs) are responsible under the Equality Act 2010 to make reasonable adjustments and offer other support for disabled students to ensure they are not placed at a substantial disadvantage compared to non-disabled students.
Disabled students should have their needs met through inclusive learning practices and individual reasonable adjustments made by their HEP. We expect HEPs to take primary responsibility for less specialist non-medical help. Information on the ways in which HEPs offer such support can be found at: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/rereports/year/2017/modelsofsupport/.
Disabled Students’ Allowances (DSAs) provide valuable, more specialist support for eligible disabled students, enabling them to participate in higher education alongside non-disabled students. The department has commissioned a research project to explore the impact of DSAs on eligible students.
Further education providers also have responsibilities under the Equality Act 2010 to support disabled students. Ofsted and Care Quality Commission jointly inspect local areas to see how well they fulfil their responsibilities for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities. Outcome letters from 53 local areas have been published to date.
Individual post-16 institutions are inspected by Ofsted, who may grade and report on provision for high needs learners. These learners are defined as young people aged 16-18, or aged 19-24 with an Education Health and Care plan, who require additional support over £6,000.
Asked by: David Drew (Labour (Co-op) - Stroud)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many registered disabled students in (a) further and (b) higher education have received support from his Department in each of the last five years for which figures are available.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
A number of financial support schemes are available to eligible 16-19 year olds (up to 25 years of age if they have an Education, Health and Care Plan) to help with the costs associated with staying in post-16 education. This can include support for travel, educational trips, and course equipment costs, childcare funding (for young parents under 20) and support with accommodation costs. In particular, the 16 to 19 Bursary Fund targets support at young people who most need help with the costs of staying on in post-16 education and training. Students in defined vulnerable groups – young people in care, care leavers, those on income support (or Universal Credit) and disabled young people in receipt of both Employment and Support Allowance (or Universal Credit) and Disability Living Allowance (or Personal Independence Payments) – may receive yearly bursaries of £1,200 a year (pro-rata for part-timers). For learners aged 19 and above, providers are able to access Learner Support funding to help learners with a specific financial hardship to help meet costs such as transport, accommodation, books, equipment and childcare.
The table below provides information on the numbers of eligible English-domiciled students who have applied for and received higher education Disabled Students’ Allowances (DSAs) in the last five years.
| Full-time undergraduate students | Part-time undergraduate students | Postgraduate students | |||
Academic year | Number of students | Amount paid | Number of students | Amount paid | Number of students | Amount paid |
2011/12 | 53,300 | £125.1m | 3,000 | £7.9m | 4,700 | £11.8m |
2012/13 | 56,600 | £127.6m | 3,000 | £7.3m | 4,900 | £10.9m |
2013/14 | 60,200 | £134.2m | 2,700 | £6.6m | 5,600 | £11.9m |
2014/15 | 59,900 | £132.2m | 3,500 | £8.6m | 5,800 | £11.0m |
2015/16 | 58,900 | £115.6m | 3,800 | £8.9m | 5,600 | £10.6m |
2016/17* | 54,900 | £92.1m | 3,400 | £6.4m | 7,100 | £11.4m |
*Figures for 2016/17 are provisional.
(Source: Student Loans Company. http://www.slc.co.uk/official-statistics/financial-support-awarded/england-higher-education.aspx).
Although we do not yet have full-year data for 2016/17, we expected to see a reduction in DSAs’ take-up from 2016/17 as higher education providers are now expected to provide less-specialist non-medical help for disabled students as part of their responsibilities under the Equality Act 2010.
Asked by: David Drew (Labour (Co-op) - Stroud)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the (a) annual budget of and (b) the cost of build or refurbishment of each University Technical College in the most recent financial year.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Education and Skills Funding Agency and the Department accounts, which include capital expenditure on Free Schools, Studio Schools and University Technical Colleges (UTC), are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/education-funding-agency-annual-report-and-accounts-2016-to-2017.
For reasons of commercial confidentiality, we do not disclose the Department’s capital budgets for individual schools. The costs of individual schools, including land purchase costs are also not disclosed before completion and overall costs are finalised. Capital funding for open Free Schools, UTCs and Studio Schools, where costs have been finalised, are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/capital-funding-for-open-free-schools.
Additional finalised capital data is due to be published in the coming months.
Asked by: David Drew (Labour (Co-op) - Stroud)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what his Department’s strategy is on increasing the number of people who seek to become head teachers.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department supports a range of programmes designed to bolster the leadership pipeline. Our recently reformed suite of national professional qualifications help better prepare leaders for the range of roles in today’s school system through from middle leadership to headship and beyond.
The Department also funds targeted programmes that aim to boost leadership capacity in challenging schools such as the High Potential Senior Leaders and High Potential Middle Leaders programmes. The second round of the £75 million Teaching and Leadership Innovation Fund opened on 31 January 2018 and seeks to build leadership capacity in the schools and areas that need it most.
The Department is also committed to supporting more teachers with protected characteristics into leadership through the Leadership Equality and Diversity Fund and Women Leading in Education networks and coaching pledge.
Asked by: David Drew (Labour (Co-op) - Stroud)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans he has to bring forward legislative proposals to ensure that school governing boards produce publicly accessible minutes of their meetings.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The School Governance (Roles, Procedures and Allowances Regulations (2013)) sets out the requirement for the governing bodies of maintained schools to make their minutes available for inspection to any interested person. The current model articles of association for academies require the same of them.
We are satisfied that these requirements help to ensure that there is transparency and public accountability about governing body meetings for all schools and have no plans for additional legislation in this area.
Asked by: David Drew (Labour (Co-op) - Stroud)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make it his Department's policy to make all school governor’s meetings minutes public.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Maintained school governing bodies are required to make the minutes of their meetings available for inspection to any interested person. Our current model articles of association also require academies to do this.
We are satisfied that these requirements help to ensure that there is transparency and public accountability around governing body decision-making.
Asked by: David Drew (Labour (Co-op) - Stroud)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the number of young people who leave care and later take their own lives; and what steps she is taking to reduce the number of young people who leave care and later take their own lives.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
The department does not record data on the reason for deaths of care leavers.
We are committed to ensuring that care leavers are able to access the mental health support that they need to maintain positive emotional health and well-being. A joint Department of Health and Department for Education Expert Working Group has recently published its proposals for improving the mental health of looked after children and care leavers. A copy of their report is available at: https://www.scie.org.uk/children/care/mental-health/report.
Work to address the Expert Group’s findings is already underway. We are putting a record £1.4 billion into children and young people’s mental health and a further £3 million has been committed to support the recently published Children and Young People’s Mental Health Green Paper. We will now consider the Expert Working Group’s report in the context of the green paper with a view to taking further action.
More broadly, the government published its third progress report on preventing suicide in England in 2016, including the measures it is taking to prevent suicides among children and young people. A copy of the report is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/582117/Suicide_report_2016_A.pdf.
We published our new cross-government strategy, Keep on Caring, in July 2016 which set out the measures we will take to improve the overall outcomes for care leavers. A copy is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/535899/Care-Leaver-Strategy.pdf.
The department publishes data annually on care leavers aged 17 to 21, which includes information on their main activity and whether or not they are in suitable accommodation. The latest data is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2016-to-2017.
Asked by: David Drew (Labour (Co-op) - Stroud)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to monitor the development of young people who have left care.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
The department does not record data on the reason for deaths of care leavers.
We are committed to ensuring that care leavers are able to access the mental health support that they need to maintain positive emotional health and well-being. A joint Department of Health and Department for Education Expert Working Group has recently published its proposals for improving the mental health of looked after children and care leavers. A copy of their report is available at: https://www.scie.org.uk/children/care/mental-health/report.
Work to address the Expert Group’s findings is already underway. We are putting a record £1.4 billion into children and young people’s mental health and a further £3 million has been committed to support the recently published Children and Young People’s Mental Health Green Paper. We will now consider the Expert Working Group’s report in the context of the green paper with a view to taking further action.
More broadly, the government published its third progress report on preventing suicide in England in 2016, including the measures it is taking to prevent suicides among children and young people. A copy of the report is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/582117/Suicide_report_2016_A.pdf.
We published our new cross-government strategy, Keep on Caring, in July 2016 which set out the measures we will take to improve the overall outcomes for care leavers. A copy is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/535899/Care-Leaver-Strategy.pdf.
The department publishes data annually on care leavers aged 17 to 21, which includes information on their main activity and whether or not they are in suitable accommodation. The latest data is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2016-to-2017.
Asked by: David Drew (Labour (Co-op) - Stroud)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many children with an (a) Education, Health and Care Plan and (b) Statement of Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) received a permanent or fixed-term exclusion in each local authority in the South West in each of the last five years.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
The accompanying table provides information on permanent and fixed-period exclusions of pupils with Education, Health and Care plans and Statements of Special Educational Needs in each local authority in the South West in each of the last five years.