Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Government is taking to provide financial support to foster carers who wish to offer staying put placements.
Answered by Kemi Badenoch - President of the Board of Trade
Since its introduction in May 2014, the department has provided new burdens funding each year to local authorities to implement ‘Staying Put’, as set out in the table below:
Financial year | Amount of funding given to local authorities to implement ‘Staying Put’ |
2014-15 | £7.4 million |
2015-16 | £14.8 million |
2016-17 | £22.2 million |
2017-18 | £22.85 million |
2018-19 | £23.3 million |
2019-20 | £23.77 million |
Total | £114.32 million |
Decisions on funding beyond March 2020 will be subject to the department’s Spending Review settlement.
Funding for each Staying Put arrangement - including whether the young person should contribute to the cost of the placement through income they receive from earnings or benefits - is agreed on a case-by-case basis and is not reported to the department. Consequently, the information requested on whether young people are required to claim benefits to subsidise the Staying Put arrangement is not available.
Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he plans to encourage schools to use parents' national insurance numbers with their consent to identify eligibility and then automatically register eligible children for free school meals.
Answered by Kemi Badenoch - President of the Board of Trade
The continuing provision of free school meals to children from out of work families, or those on low incomes, is of the utmost importance to this government. We want to make sure as many eligible pupils as possible are claiming their free school meals, and to make it as simple as possible for schools and local authorities to determine eligibility. To support this, we already provide an electronic Eligibility Checking System (ECS) to make the checking process as quick and straightforward as possible for schools and local authorities. We have also developed a model registration form to help schools encourage parents to sign up for free school meals. We also provide guidance to Jobcentre Plus advisers so that they can make Universal Credit recipients aware that they may also be entitled to wider benefits, including free school meals.
We will continue to look at what the most effective schools do and to highlight and disseminate best practice. We are prepared to consider any further steps we can take to improve the take-up of free school meals.
Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he will take to make school uniforms and PE kits more affordable for families on low incomes.
Answered by Nick Gibb
It is for the governing body of a school, or in the case of academies, the academy trust, to decide rules relating to appearance including whether there should be a school uniform, what it will be and how it should be sourced.
No school uniform should be so expensive as to leave pupils or their families feeling unable to apply to, or attend, a school of their choice. The Department’s best-practice guidance advises schools that they should give the highest priority to cost considerations and achieving value for money for parents.
The Department intends to put the school uniform guidance on a statutory footing when a suitable opportunity arises and the guidance is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-uniform.
Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make it his policy to require schools to offer pupils breakfast on the morning of their exams.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Schools are responsible for their day-to-day running, including their school meals service. I refer the right hon. Member for Birkenhead to the answer I gave on 5 July 2019 to Question 270292.
Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether schools are required to provide breakfasts and free school meals to pupils who receive such support throughout the rest of the school year on days when end-of-year tests and examinations take place.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
If the end of year tests or examinations fall within the school day as defined in the Education Act (1996), then free school meals should be made available to the pupil on those days. Section 579 of the Education Act (1996) defines a school day as ‘any day on which at that school there is a school session’.
Schools are not required to provide breakfasts. However, the department is investing up to £26 million to set up or improve 1,700 sustainable breakfast clubs in schools in the most disadvantaged areas across the country.
Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many schools in Birkenhead have received funds from the allocation of £26 million for additional breakfast provision since March 2018.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Information from the programme is still being collected and data on funding at local authority level is not available at this stage. We will review the effectiveness of the programme once it has fully concluded.
Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the forthcoming strategy for ESOL will ensure that all refugees can access a minimum of eight hours a week of formal, accredited English language teaching for their first two years in the UK.
Answered by Anne Milton
The government recognises that learning English is essential in enabling refugees to rebuild their lives. We are working across government to develop a new strategy for English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) in 2019, which will include addressing the needs of refugees.
The department funds ESOL through the Adult Education Budget, which is allocated to providers on an annual basis. Colleges and adult learning providers have the freedom and flexibility to determine how they use their Adult Education Budget allocation to meet the needs of their communities and this includes planning, with local partners, the ESOL courses that they will deliver locally.
The Home Office and Department for Education have provided £10 million to enable refugees resettled through the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme to access additional classes.
Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the average waiting time was for a SEND assessment after a child was referred by a teacher in the most recent period for which figures are available.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Schools (and further education colleges, sixth form colleges and 16-19 academies) are required to identify and address the special educational needs (SEN) of the pupils they support and to use their best endeavours to make sure that a child or young person who has SEN gets the support they need. This is outlined in the statutory SEN Code of Practice.
The school should assess the child, plan an intervention if a learning difficulty is identified, implement the intervention and then review the outcome and progressively repeat this cycle until the child’s learning difficulty is properly supported. This type of support is called SEN Support and the cyclical process is referred to as a ‘graduated approach’ to meeting children’s needs. This process should take place regardless of whether a child has been referred for an education, health and care (EHC) needs assessment by the local authority.
Information regarding the average waiting time and the average cost of SEND assessments is not held by the department. However, information is published on the number and percentage of new education, health and care plans that are issued within 20 weeks of referral in the annual ‘Statements of SEN and EHC plans’ statistical release. Information for the most recent period is published in table 8 of the release found at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/statements-of-sen-and-ehc-plans-england-2018.
Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support is available for a pupil waiting for a SEND assessment; and what the average cost was per pupil receiving such an assessment in the most recent period for which figures are available..
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Schools (and further education colleges, sixth form colleges and 16-19 academies) are required to identify and address the special educational needs (SEN) of the pupils they support and to use their best endeavours to make sure that a child or young person who has SEN gets the support they need. This is outlined in the statutory SEN Code of Practice.
The school should assess the child, plan an intervention if a learning difficulty is identified, implement the intervention and then review the outcome and progressively repeat this cycle until the child’s learning difficulty is properly supported. This type of support is called SEN Support and the cyclical process is referred to as a ‘graduated approach’ to meeting children’s needs. This process should take place regardless of whether a child has been referred for an education, health and care (EHC) needs assessment by the local authority.
Information regarding the average waiting time and the average cost of SEND assessments is not held by the department. However, information is published on the number and percentage of new education, health and care plans that are issued within 20 weeks of referral in the annual ‘Statements of SEN and EHC plans’ statistical release. Information for the most recent period is published in table 8 of the release found at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/statements-of-sen-and-ehc-plans-england-2018.
Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the change in the level of spending on SEND provision per pupil with special educational needs or disabilities has been since 2015.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
We do not collect information on the spending by schools on individual pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Support for those with more complex SEND are funded through the local authorities high needs budgets.
Our total high needs funding allocations since 2015 are:
Year | Amount |
2015-16 | £5.2 billion |
2016-17 | £5.3 billion |
2017-18 | £5.8 billion |
2018-19* | £6.1 billion |
2019-20* | £6.3 billion |
The amounts between financial years are not directly comparable due to structural changes in the high needs funding baseline.
*Both of these years include £125 million additional funding, which was announced in December 2018.
The total level of local authorities’ high needs gross expenditure, not including place funding, can be found in the section 251 outturn data, and these are as follows:
Year | Amount |
2015-16 | £3.96 billion |
2016-17 | £4.21 billion |
2017-18 | £4.50 billion |
2018-19* | £4.46 billion |
*These years use high needs budget data, rather than outturn data, as we have not yet published the high needs outturns.
The majority of high needs funding is directed towards pupils with education, health and care plans (EHCP). The number of pupils each year with plans can be found in the school census data, which is published in January. The numbers for each year are as follows:
Year | Number |
2015 | 240,163 |
2016 | 256,315 |
2017 | 287,290 |
2018 | 319,819 |
The number of pupils with SEND in 2019 has not yet been published. This figure is an amalgamation of EHCP and Statements of SEND, but this does not include Learning Difficulty Assessments (LDA), and so is not an accurate comparison year-on-year. LDAs were phased out with the introduction of EHCPs, and the last LDAs were phased out of the system in 2016.