Asked by: Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many applications were there for places on the Higher Education Short Courses trial; how many and what proportion of these applications were accepted; and how many and what proportion of those that were accepted applied for (i) fee and (ii) maintenance loans.
Answered by Andrea Jenkyns
The Higher Education Short Course Trial is testing flexible short courses at 22 providers across England. These courses are brand new, and they will be rolling out over the 2022/23 academic year.
The nature of these short courses means they are not tied to the concept of the academic year and providers have discretion on when to deliver these courses. The department expects the majority of courses to start from January 2023.
At this early stage in the trial, the Student Loans Company (SLC) has received 12 applications for tuition fee loans to date.[1] However, we expect more students to be participating in these courses, as they can choose to self-fund or receive funding from their employers for their tuition fees.
Students apply directly to providers for these courses. The exact number of applications for Higher Education Short Course Trial courses is held by each individual provider.
Maintenance loans are not provided as part of the trial. However, those who need additional support may be eligible for the short course study-costs bursary.
The department will be monitoring the overall number of students on courses and the number of applications for loans at various points throughout the trial.
As a new type of learning, the department is expecting demand for short courses to increase over the course of the three-year trial, as more learners become aware of these opportunities and realise the benefits flexible learning can bring.
[1] Information provided by the SLC, correct as of 21/09/22.
Asked by: Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he has made an assessment of the impact of (a) recent and (b) anticipated rises in the energy price cap on school budgets; and if he will take steps to support schools with the increase in the cost of energy.
Answered by Robin Walker
School energy bills are not impacted by the energy price cap, as their energy contracts are commercial rather than domestic.
The department has surveyed all schools in England to get basic data on their current and future energy tariffs to better understand how they have been affected by recent energy price increases. The survey closed on 2 June 2022, and the responses will be used to understand the impacts of energy cost increases on schools and inform considerations of additional support the department could offer.
Cost increases should be considered in the wider context of funding for schools. The department is delivering a £4 billion cash increase in the core schools budget next year, taking total funding to £53.8 billion. This includes an additional £1.2 billion for schools in the new schools supplementary grant for the 2022/23 financial year. Overall, this represents a 7% cash terms per pupil boost, which will help schools meet the pressures we know they are facing, particularly around energy costs.
All schools can access a range of school resource management (SRM) tools to help them get the best value from their resources, save on regular purchases, and reduce non-teaching costs. The department’s SRM tools include recommended deals for energy costs and ancillary services relating to energy. The Get Help Buying for Schools service will also be able to offer support to schools in switching and entering new contracts. Guidance will be updated on a regular basis to inform schools of the market and commercial position, with practical advice on exiting existing and entering new contracts. This guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/buying-for-schools.
The department understands that every school’s circumstances are different, and where schools are in serious financial difficulty, they should contact their local authority or the Education and Skills Funding Agency.
Asked by: Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the length of time it will take under the National Funding Formula for similar schools in different areas to receive parity of funding.
Answered by Robin Walker
Since its introduction in the 2018/19 financial year, the schools national funding formula (NFF) has distributed funding for mainstream schools in England fairly between local authorities. This is based on the individual needs and characteristics of schools and pupils. Local authorities then distribute that funding among their respective schools, using their own formulae.
Following last year’s ‘Fair school funding for all’ consultation, the department is moving to a direct funding formula for schools. The formula will complete the reforms to school funding which started when the NFF was introduced. A direct NFF will mean that the department determines funding allocations for individual schools without substantial local adjustment, on the basis of a single, consistent formula for the whole country.
Many local authorities have already moved their local formula to follow the NFF more closely. 105 out of 150 local authorities in England moved all of the values used in their local formulae closer to the NFF between the 2018/19 and 2021/22 financial years, or kept them within 1% of NFF values after allowing for the area cost adjustment. 73 local authorities are now mirroring the NFF funding factors almost exactly.
The department will start the process of transitioning fully to the direct NFF in the 2023/24 financial year by requiring that local authorities use all, and only, NFF factors in their local formulae. Local formulae factor values should move at least 10% closer to the NFF.
The department is not setting a definitive end date at which the direct NFF will be implemented. It will be important to continue to be guided by the impact of the initial transition towards the direct NFF, before deciding on the further pace of change. However, to give a sense of the likely timescales to inform schools’ and local authorities’ planning, the department is setting out that it expects to have moved to the direct NFF within the next five financial years, or by the 2027/28 funding year.
The department hopes that it will move to the direct NFF sooner than this. As we move to the direct NFF, individual schools’ budgets will continue to be protected, so that they do not suffer an excessive year-on-year reduction.
Asked by: Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the trends in the levels of the average per pupil funding between local authorities in England; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Robin Walker
The department publishes annual statistics on school revenue funding. The latest publication can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-funding-statistics/2021-22. This gives an overview of trends in school funding from the 2010/11 to 2022/23 financial years. Nationally, per-pupil funding increased by 4.5% over the course of the 2020/21 and 2021/22 financial years and then by a further 4.2% in the 2022/23 financial year, reaching £6,780 (in 2021/22 prices). The majority of core schools funding is distributed via the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG). Local authority level funding allocations of the DSG by year can be found here: https://skillsfunding.service.gov.uk/view-latest-funding/national-funding-allocations/DSG/2022-to-2023.
The schools national funding formula (NFF) continues to distribute funding fairly, based on the needs of schools and their pupil cohorts. Most of the funding is distributed based on pupil numbers and characteristics, which ensures that resources are delivered where they are needed most. The NFF allocates 17% (£6.7 billion) of all funding in the 2022/23 financial year through additional needs factors based on deprivation, low prior attainment, English as an additional language and mobility. The total amount allocated through the deprivation factors in the NFF is increasing by £225 million, or 6.7%, in the 2022/23 financial year. In addition, the 2022/23 financial year supplementary grant will provide significant additional funding for deprivation.
Similarly, the current high needs funding formula, introduced in the 2018/19 financial year after extensive consultation, was a significant step forward in making the allocation of funding fairer. The formula is based on the population of 2- to 18-year-olds in a local authority area and includes several factors which together are intended to reflect the level of need in the area. The government intends to consult and seek views on further changes to the funding formula in due course.
The department’s national funding formulae are not designed to give every local authority the same amount of funding. It is right that areas with more children and young people with additional needs, or areas of socioeconomic deprivation, should get extra funding to enable the right level of support to be given.
Asked by: Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will publish a timeframe for the implementation of proposals in the SEND review, including those proposals in respect of equitable funding across the country for young children and young people in special schools and other specialist provision; and what steps his Department is taking to ensure that funding is sufficient to implement those proposals from the date that they are introduced.
Answered by Will Quince
The department is currently consulting on proposals in the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Green Paper, including those on funding. The consultation will close on 22 July 2022. The department will publish a response to the consultation and set out plans for delivery later in the year.
The government continues to deliver year-on-year, real terms per pupil increases to the core schools budget with a £7 billion increase in funding by the 2024/25 financial year, compared with the 2021/22 financial year. This takes total funding to £56.8 billion by the 2024/25 financial year. As a result, the department was able to announce last December that high needs funding for children and young people with complex needs is increasing in the 2022/23 financial year by £1 billion to a total of £9.1 billion.
Funding will continue to increase in the 2023/24 and 2024/25 financial years. Funding for the 2025/26 financial year onwards is subject to the next Spending Review.
Alongside annual allocations of funding for SEND provision, the department will support the delivery of reforms through a £70 million SEND and AP change programme. This is both to test and refine key changes, and to help local systems manage the necessary improvements.