Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much Government funding has been provided to schools in Easington constituency through the National Tutoring Programme in each month since the Programme was launched.
Answered by Jonathan Gullis
The Department does not hold information on tuition partners or academic mentors in the required format at constituency level.
School-led tutoring grant allocations by school and local authority for the academic year 2021/2022 have been published at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1071234/School_Led_Funding_Publication_File_flat_values_v1.ods
Payment information relating to school-led tutoring for the academic year 2021/2022 will be published by the Educational Skills and Funding Agency once the reconciliation process has been completed for that period.
School-led tutoring grant allocations for the academic year 2022/23 have been published at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-tutoring-programme-ntp-allocations-for-2022-to-2023-academic-year.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to include people with lived experience of childhood disability on the new National Implementation Board for children’s social care.
Answered by Will Quince
The department recognises the importance of engaging directly with people with lived experience, building on the impressive work of the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care in hearing and accounting for the voices of children and their families, including people with lived experience of childhood disability.
We are committed to continuing this approach, by keeping the views and interests of those with lived experience at the heart of our work as we develop our implementation strategy for children’s social care. The new National Implementation Board will include people with their own experience of the care system, alongside those with experience of leading transformational change.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to ensure the new National Children’s Social Care Framework works with the proposed new National SEND Standards, as outlined in the SEND Review, to meet the social care needs of families with disabled children.
Answered by Will Quince
The government is committed to building a coherent children’s social care system that has the interests of families and vulnerable children at its heart.
The department will align its implementation strategy for children’s social care with reforms to the special educational needs and disabilities system that it is consulting on through the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Green Paper.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Answer of 28 April 2022 to Question 158937, what assessment he has made of the prospect of the policy proposal in the SEND Review on deciding the levels of support disabled children get from a national banding system having the potential effect of reducing the level of support disabled children and families currently receive.
Answered by Will Quince
The special education needs and disabilities (SEND) and alternative provision green paper sets out our proposals to improve the outcomes and experiences of children and young people with SEND and their families so that they can fulfil their potential and lead happy, healthy, and productive adult lives. The proposals aim to drive national consistency in how needs are assessed, identified, and met across education, health and care through the introduction of national standards.
The department wants to ensure the most effective use of our investment in high needs funding and the proposal for national framework of funding bands has the potential to ensure far greater consistency in funding arrangements throughout the system. The department is consulting on how it can best develop a national framework for funding bands and tariffs, to achieve its objectives and help make it easier for all children and young people and their families to understand not only the provision they can access locally but also the funding levels that provision would attract, giving them greater assurance that their child’s needs will be met appropriately.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Answer of 28 April 2022 to Question 158936, what discussions he has had with families with disabled children when formulating the policy proposal in the SEND Review to only allow families with disabled children to pick a school from a pre-defined list where those families have had to take a local authority to the SEND tribunal to get the school their disabled child needs.
Answered by Will Quince
Throughout the SEND Review, the department has engaged hundreds of people, including children, young people, and their families, as well as working with a cross-sector steering group which had representation from parents and carers. In March 2022, we addressed questions about the review at a webinar attended by 200 parents and carers of children and young people with SEND. Earlier this month, the department hosted a meeting of 14 SEND charities convened by the Council for Disabled Children. These charities include representation of children and young people, and their parents.
The department recognises that the significant set of proposals outlined in the green paper need to be subject to a full public consultation. For this reason, over 120 consultation events have been arranged, allowing direct engagement with a broad range of people, including children, young people, and their families. The department is committed to ensuring everyone has an opportunity to take part in the consultation and we encourage everyone to do so.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the proposal in his Department's SEND review on determining the level of support that disabled children receive from a national banding system, what assessment he has made of the compatibility of that proposal with the aim of providing support to each disabled child based on individual need, as set out in the Children and Families Act 2014.
Answered by Will Quince
The SEND and AP green paper sets out our proposal to establish a single national SEND and AP system setting national standards for how needs are identified and met across education, health, and care to address inconsistency across the SEND system in how and where needs are assessed and met.
This includes consistent processes for how individual needs are identified and recorded and the appropriate provision to meet those needs, including best practice in reasonable adjustments for disabled children, such as those children with a sensory impairment and the full range of appropriate types of support and provision for meeting different needs.
The department is consulting on the proposals for a tailored list of placements and the development of a national framework of bands and tariffs and will fully consider the impact of these proposals on disabled children, including the impact on their health and meeting their individual needs as the department takes this forward.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the proposal in his Department's SEND review to allow families with disabled children to pick a school from a pre-defined list, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of that proposal on the health of disabled children in the event that schools on that list do not meet their needs.
Answered by Will Quince
The SEND and AP green paper sets out our proposal to establish a single national SEND and AP system setting national standards for how needs are identified and met across education, health, and care to address inconsistency across the SEND system in how and where needs are assessed and met.
This includes consistent processes for how individual needs are identified and recorded and the appropriate provision to meet those needs, including best practice in reasonable adjustments for disabled children, such as those children with a sensory impairment and the full range of appropriate types of support and provision for meeting different needs.
The department is consulting on the proposals for a tailored list of placements and the development of a national framework of bands and tariffs and will fully consider the impact of these proposals on disabled children, including the impact on their health and meeting their individual needs as the department takes this forward.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to Let Us Learn Too and the Disabled Children’s Partnership’s SEND Money Survey, published on 7 February 2022, what steps he is taking to prevent families with disabled children from having to pay for essential support for their children’s development privately.
Answered by Will Quince
In July 2021 the government published the National Disability Strategy, setting out a range of commitments over supporting children and young people with disabilities in their education and preparation for adulthood.
The department is providing over £42 million during this financial year 2021-22 to continue funding projects to support children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). This investment will ensure that specialist organisations around the country can continue to help strengthen local area performance, support families and provide practical support to schools and colleges. It will strengthen participation of parents and young people in the SEND system, ensuring they have a voice in designing policies and services and have access to essential support. This also includes £27.3 million in the financial year 2021-22 to support families on low incomes raising disabled or seriously ill children.
Additionally, councils will be funded £30 million for the next three years to set up more than 10,000 additional respite placements, helping to provide positive opportunities for disabled children and young people.
The department is conducting a review of the SEND system and looking at ways to make sure the system is more consistent, high quality, and integrated across education, health and care. The outcome of that review will be published as a green paper for full public consultation in the first quarter of this year.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the compliance of his Department's staff working from home with the Working Time Regulations 1998.
Answered by Michelle Donelan - Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
The department does not centrally monitor working hours for any employee but requires all employees, regardless of work location, to keep an accurate record of the hours they work.
All employees are able to work flexibly under the department’s Flexible Working and Flexitime Policies; these policies discourage long hours working. Under these policies, managers are responsible for organising workloads, and must avoid imposing workloads or deadlines that oblige their employees to work excessive hours. Managers are also encouraged to check their employees' flexitime sheets on a monthly basis to ensure they are not working excessive hours.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities over the use of the £4.8 billion additional grant funding for local authorities, announced at the Spending Review on 27 October 2021, to help ensure that the short breaks and respite care that families with disabled children have may missed during outbreak of covid-19 are restored.
Answered by Will Quince
My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, and the Department for Education, discuss and work with other government departments on a regular basis, including with my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities, on a range of issues, including local government funding and services.