Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans the Government has to expand the number of primary school places in Wolverhampton.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Local authorities are responsible for planning and securing sufficient school places in their area, and supporting them in doing so is one of this Government’s top priorities. Wolverhampton has received £19 million for new places between 2011 and 2017 and has been allocated a further £6 million for 2017 to 2020. In summer 2016, the City of Wolverhampton Council reported that they had firm plans in place to provide 555 primary school places by September 2018.
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many apprentices were from below average income households in (a) England, (b) West Midlands and (c) Wolverhampton in each of the last three years.
Answered by Anne Milton
The information requested is not held centrally.
The department does not currently hold information which is specific to the breakdown of apprentices by their household income by region.
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many of the 200,000 new public sector apprenticeships announced by her Department on 20 January 2017 have been filled; and how many of those are based in the (a) West Midlands and (b) City of Wolverhampton.
Answered by Anne Milton
Figures on the number of public sector apprenticeships are not available. Public sector bodies in scope of the public sector apprenticeships target are required annually to publish and send to the Department for Education their progress towards the target.
The first reports (covering the period 2017/18) will be due by 30 September 2018.
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of regulations on sprinklers in schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government is taking the impact from the tragic Grenfell Tower fire very seriously. Building owners across the public sector estate, including schools, have been contacted to ensure any risks are managed and dealt with appropriately and promptly.
All schools must have a mandatory Fire Risk Assessment and all new schools undergo an additional check while being designed. Where sprinklers are necessary to keep staff and students safe, or where they are required under a local authority planning policy, they are fitted. There is not and has never been a national requirement for sprinklers to be fitted in all new or existing schools.
All schools have to follow strict fire safety regulations designed to ensure they are as safe as possible and well prepared in the event of a fire. They must have robust plans to follow, conduct regular fire drills, and typically have multiple exit routes.
The Government has announced an independent review of building regulations and fire safety to be led by Dame Judith Hackitt. Alongside the rest of Government, the Department will take forward any findings from the public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire and ensure any recommendations for schools are implemented.
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information her Department holds on (a) primary schools, (b) secondary schools and (c) further education colleges which are clad in flammable substances.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government is taking the impact from the tragic Grenfell Tower fire very seriously. Building owners across the public sector estate have been contacted to ensure any risks are managed and dealt with appropriately and promptly. As set out in our anouncement of 13 July, we have contacted all bodies responsible for fire safety – including in schools and FE colleges - instructing them to carry out checks to identify any buildings which may require further investigation.
Two schools to date – one a secondary school, one a primary special school - where Aluminium Composite Material (ACM) cladding has been identified and tested, have been alerted to the results. Five FE colleges have been identified as having ACM cladding – in one case, the building affected is shared with a university.
All these school and college buildings have been inspected by the Fire and Rescue Service - who confirmed appropriate measures are in place to mitigate the risks from potential fire. The buildings have now been declared safe for use. We are continuing to work closely with the schools concerned to support them and ensure all the necessary steps are taken to ensure the continued safety of the buildings.
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent estimate she has made of the number of nursery school places in Wolverhampton North East constituency.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Local authorities are required to report annually to elected council members on how they are meeting their duty to secure sufficient childcare and early education places, and to make this report available and accessible to parents. The Department does not hold local authority or constituency level estimates of the number of places in local authority maintained nursery schools. However, the number of pupils attending local authority maintained nurseries can be found in the statistical first release and underlying data published at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2016
Local authority and regional tables: SFR20/2016 (Table 7b) indicates that 686 pupils were registered as attending local authority maintained nursery schools in Wolverhampton in 2016.
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much the Government has spent on nursery education in Wolverhampton North East constituency in each of the last seven years; and how much it plans to spend on such education in that constituency in the financial year 2017-18.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Funding for the free early years entitlements is allocated on a local authority basis. The early years funding allocation for Wolverhampton local authority can be found below for the following financial years:
2013-14:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dedicated-schools-grant-2013-to-2014
2014-15:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dedicated-schools-grant-2014-to-2015
2015-16:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dedicated-schools-grant-dsg-2015-to-2016
2016-17 (provisional allocation):
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dedicated-schools-grant-dsg-2016-to-2017
2017-18 (indicative allocation):
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dedicated-schools-grant-dsg-2017-to-2018
Prior to 2013-14, early years local authority funding allocations were not separately identified within the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG). Instead, they were part of the total DSG allocated to each local authority. Early years allocations prior to 2013-14 are not therefore available.
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will estimate how much of the planned £55 million supplementary funding for maintained nurseries will be spent in (a) Wolverhampton and (b) Wolverhampton North East constituency; and what steps her Department is taking to support maintained nurseries in Wolverhampton.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Supplementary funding for maintained nursery schools is allocated on a local authority basis, as is the free early years entitlements funding within the Dedicated Schools Grant. Of the £55m supplementary funding, the indicative allocation for Wolverhampton local authority is £1.04m in 2017-18.
The supplementary funding will allow local authorities, including Wolverhampton, to maintain existing levels of nursery school funding. This extra funding will provide stability for nursery schools, which make a valuable contribution to improving the lives of some of our most disadvantaged children. We have recently completed a data assurance exercise that will ensure that local authorities receive the correct amount of supplementary funding.
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the number of (a) nurseries and (b) nursery school places in Wolverhampton North East constituency that will offer 30 hours of free childcare from September 2017.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Local authorities are responsible for making an assessment about the number of 30 hours free childcare places that providers plan to offer in their areas. To support them to deliver 30 hours, we are investing £100 million to create almost 18,000 additional early years places for eligible children to help meet demand from working parents. This is backed by £1 billion extra revenue per year for the early years entitlements, including £300 million per year to increase the funding rates paid to nurseries, pre-schools and childminders that choose to deliver the offer. This means that Wolverhampton local authority will see an increase in their hourly funding rate to £4.68.
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the (a) gain and (b) loss of funding for each primary school in (i) Wolverhampton North East constituency and (ii) City of Wolverhampton local authority in (A) the first year, (B) two years and (C) five years after implementation of the new funding formula.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Our proposals for funding reform will mean that schools and local authorities will, for the first time, receive a consistent and fair share of the schools budget, so that they can give every child the opportunity to reach their full potential. We have been consulting on our proposals since December 2016 through an extensive 14 week consultation, including publishing detailed impact data for all schools in England.
Our proposals will target money towards pupils who face entrenched barriers to their education, such as those from disadvantaged backgrounds and those who live in areas of deprivation.
The percentage of pupils living in deprived areas (measured by IDACI) and pupils eligible for free school meals, in both the constituency and England, is shown in the table below.
Pupil characteristic | Wolverhampton North East | National average |
IDACI A-F Primary | 85% | 45% |
IDACI A-F Secondary | 80% | 43% |
FSM Primary | 27% | 15% |
FSM Secondary | 25% | 14% |
As a result of our proposals, in the first year of the formula, Wolverhampton local authority would see an overall cash increase in schools funding of 0.8%. Illustrative allocations for the second year of the formula have been not been calculated, but by the time of full implementation of the formula, Wolverhampton schools would see cash gains of 2.4%.
For schools in Wolverhampton North East, the proposals would mean an overall cash increase of 1.1%, or £0.7 million.
85% of the primary schools in Wolverhampton local authority and 67% of the primary schools in Wolverhampton North East would gain funding as a result of our proposals.
Schools that are due to gain funding will do so quickly, with increases of up to 3% in per pupil funding in 2018-19 and a further 2.5% in 2019-20. No school will lose more than 1.5% per year or 3% overall per pupil as a result of our formula.
Illustrative allocations for all primary schools in Wolverhampton local authority in the first year of the formula and full implementation are shown in the attached table.