Asked by: Gary Streeter (Conservative - South West Devon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the efficacy of Ofsted's registration process for new residential care centres for children with severe and multiple additional behavioural needs.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The department has not carried out an assessment of the efficacy of Ofsted’s registration process for children’s social care settings. However, the requirement to register and registration procedure is contained in part 2 of the Care Standards Act 2000 and this sets out a number of safeguards to ensure its efficacy.
Asked by: Gary Streeter (Conservative - South West Devon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the effect of the apprenticeship levy on schools in (a) Devon and Plymouth and (b) England; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Anne Milton
As with other areas of the public sector, the department will be monitoring the uptake of apprenticeships by the school workforce. Public sector bodies included in the apprenticeship target are required to annually publish and report to the department their progress towards the target. The first reports (covering the period 1 April 2017 – 31 March 2018) are due on 30 September 2018. As we have outlined to the Public Accounts Committee, the department will also include the financial impact of the apprenticeship levy as part of our publication regarding the cost pressures on schools.
Asked by: Gary Streeter (Conservative - South West Devon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the research published by Save the Children on 1 November 2016, what implications the findings of this report that children in nurseries without an early years teacher are almost 10 per cent less likely to meet the expected levels of development when they start school will have on her Department's policies.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
On 3 March the Department for Education published an early years workforce strategy which seeks to remove the barriers to attracting, retaining and developing staff.
For graduates we have begun the process to amend regulations so that early years teachers can lead teaching in nursery and reception classes in maintained schools. Over the longer term, we are going to consider how plans to strengthen QTS could offer positive opportunities for early years teachers. We also want to make sure that all settings serving disadvantaged children can access specialist graduates, so we are commissioning a feasibility study to explore how best to achieve this.
The strategy is available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-workforce-strategy
Asked by: Gary Streeter (Conservative - South West Devon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what definition of the workforce will be used for the purposes of deciding the percentage of apprentices to be engaged by a school under apprenticeship levy proposals.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The Government is committed to raising the quality and quantity of apprenticeships and achieving 3 million apprenticeship starts by 2020. This includes all aspects of the public sector, from policy makers to frontline services.
Following the consultation on setting apprenticeship targets for public bodies, and wider engagement with representatives from across the public sector, the Government is intending to publish its response to the consultation shortly. That document will detail what definition of the workforce within schools and other public sector bodies will be used when setting the target.
When considering which employers, including schools, will make payments towards the apprenticeship levy we do not base this assessment on the number of staff but rather on those employers with a pay bill of more than £3 million.