Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the cost to the public purse has been to date of the area-based review of post-16 education in the Liverpool City Region.
Answered by Robert Halfon
Area reviews are designed to deliver a further education system that meets the economic and educational needs of areas, whilst also ensuring the long term sustainability of colleges to support productivity. The Department and its agencies are undertaking this work without any additional staffing. Additional costs have, therefore, been minimal. Where they have arisen, they have been met by reprioritising existing resources. This has included providing access to additional advice and support from the Further Education and Sixth Form College Commissioners and their teams.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the cost to the public purse has been to date of the area-based reviews of post-16 education in England.
Answered by Robert Halfon
Area reviews are designed to deliver a further education system that meets the economic and educational needs of areas, whilst also ensuring the long term sustainability of colleges to support productivity. The Department and its agencies are undertaking this work without any additional staffing. Additional costs have, therefore, been minimal. Where they have arisen, they have been met by reprioritising existing resources. This has included providing access to additional advice and support from the Further Education and Sixth Form College Commissioners and their teams.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many children were excluded from academy schools in Halton in each year since 2010.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The number of permanent and fixed period exclusions in secondary academies in Halton local authority in each year since 2010/11 is provided in the table below. Note that the figures relate to secondary academies only as there were no special academies in Halton in the period the figures relate to and there were no permanent or fixed period exclusions reported by the primary academies in the area.
| Number of secondary academies | Number of permanent exclusions[1] | Number of fixed period exclusions |
2010/11 | 1 | x | 39 |
2011/12 | 2 | 6 | 144 |
2012/13 | 3 | x | 158 |
2013/14 | 4 | x | 228 |
The number of permanent and fixed period exclusions in each of the years for all other secondary schools (i.e. those that are not academies) in Halton local authority is provided in the table below.
| Number of schools | Number of permanent exclusions | Number of fixed period exclusions |
2010/11 | 6 | 9 | 639 |
2011/12 | 5 | 5 | 565 |
2012/13 | 5 | 13 | 461 |
2013/14 | 4 | 9 | 388 |
[1] Figures marked “x” are suppressed as they are less than 5
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many teacher vacancies there have been in (a) secondary and (b) primary schools in England in each year since 2010.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The information requested is published in the statistical first release ‘School Workforce in England, November 2014’ in Table 14 of the Main Tables, available at the following web link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/school-workforce-in-england-november-2014
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many teacher vacancies there were in schools in (a) Halton, (b) Merseyside and (c) Cheshire on 31 March 2016.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The following table provides the number of full-time teacher vacancies in state funded schools in (a) Halton, (b) Merseyside, and (c) Cheshire in November 2014, the latest information available[1]. November 2015 data will be available at the end of June.
| Number of Full-Time Vacant Posts |
Halton | 0 |
Merseyside | 12 |
Cheshire[2] | 6 |
Source: School Workforce Census
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/school-workforce-in-england-november-2014
[2] Includes Halton, Warrington, Cheshire East and Cheshire West and Chester.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the average amount spent on new school textbooks in (a) primary and (b) secondary schools in each year since 2010.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department for Education does not collect data on the specific amount schools spend on textbooks.
The department publishes the amount of money spent on educational resources, including textbooks. This information is published in releases which can be found online at GOV.UK.[1]
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/income-and-expenditure-in-academies-in-england-2013-to-2014
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the average cost of a new uniform for secondary school students.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department published a report on 25 June 2015 which examined the changes in the cost of school uniform, for both primary and secondary schools, since 2007. The full report is available on GOV.UK at the following link: www.gov.uk/government/publications/cost-of-school-uniform-2015
Our guidance includes the recommendation that governing bodies ‘consider the cost, the available supply sources and year round availability of the proposed uniform to ensure it is providing best value for money for parents’.