Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many schools closed classrooms due to (a) maintenance and (b) structural issues in the last 12 months.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department will always put the safety and wellbeing of children and staff in education settings at the heart of its policy decisions. It is the responsibility of those who run our schools, academy trusts, local authorities, and voluntary-aided school bodies, who work with their schools on a day-to-day basis, to manage the maintenance of their schools. Most building and refurbishment works within schools and colleges do not involve RAAC and will not require the involvement of the Department. The Department does not therefore hold information on the number of buildings closed due to maintenance and structural issues.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of funding allocated to the maintenance and renewal of school buildings.
Answered by Nick Gibb
It is the responsibility of those who run schools - academy trusts, Local Authorities and voluntary-aided school bodies - to manage the safety and maintenance of their schools and to alert the Department if there is a serious concern with a building. It has always been the case that where the Department is made aware of a building may pose an immediate risk, immediate action is taken.
The Department provides extensive guidance for responsible bodies to help them make effective spending decisions and manage their estates strategically and effectively through resources such as the Good Estate Management for Schools guidance.
The 2021 Spending Review announced over £19 billion of capital funding to support the education sector between 2022/23 and 2024/25. In addition to targeted work on RAAC, the Department has continued to invest in improving the condition of the school estate, with over £15 billion allocated since 2015, including £1.8 billion committed for the 2023/24 financial year. On top of this, the Department is transforming 500 schools through the School Rebuilding Programme. A total of 400 schools have been confirmed, with 100 places reserved for later in the programme. Buildings in the poorest condition and those with evidence of potential safety issues have been prioritised, including some now known to contain RAAC. The Department is committed to the projects that have already been announced as being rebuilt or refurbished through the School Rebuilding Programme.
The Department will always put the safety and wellbeing of children and staff in education settings at the heart of its policy decisions. The Government has taken more proactive action to identify and mitigate RAAC in education settings than the devolved administrations in the UK, or indeed, governments overseas.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Further education reclassification: government response, published on 29 November 2022, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of new private sector borrowing rules on further education colleges.
Answered by Robert Halfon
Following the decision by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to reclassify colleges to the public sector, the department is supporting colleges to meet the requirements of managing public money, while retaining many of their key areas of autonomy and flexibility.
Managing public money means public sector organisations may only borrow from private sector sources if the transaction delivers value for money for HM Treasury. The department has put in place a consents process for any new commercial borrowing that colleges would like to undertake. Department officials are working through the requests for January in priority order and will respond to colleges as quickly as possible.
Where the department has been unable to consent to commercial borrowing, it will consider if there is any scope for finding alternative ways to support projects that colleges were intending, pre-reclassification, to self-fund through commercial borrowing.
In response to the ONS decision on reclassification, the department has designed a package of measures to enable colleges to deliver on the priorities in the Skills for Jobs White Paper, and to continue to invest in their estates. This includes an additional £150 million allocation of capital grant funding for condition improvement for 2023/24. These allocations are available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/fe-capital-funding#fe-reclassification-capital-allocation. Allocations will be paid in April 2023.
The department is bringing forward £300 million of funding by March 2023 to smooth the payment profile and help colleges with their cashflow. This was communicated to the sector on 18 January.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the further education reclassification: government response, published 29 November 2022, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of allowing further education colleges to recover VAT.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The government keeps VAT policies under review. Any proposals to changes in the tax system would need to be considered in the context of broader public finances.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of reallocating potential underspend from the 16-18 education budget to the adult education budget for further education colleges.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The department manages its budget within the Departmental Expenditure Limit to best achieve government objectives, including re-purposing underspends on some budgets to help with pressures and priorities elsewhere.
The department recognises the importance of adult education. Through a range of programmes, we are targeting provision at adults to equip them with the skills employers look for, and the skills that will lead to better jobs, better wellbeing, and better options for the future.
This includes through the Adult Education Budget, apprenticeships, Skills Bootcamps, and Free Courses for Jobs.
The Adult Education Budget, worth £1.34 billion this year, funds skills provision for adults to help them gain the skills that they need for work, an apprenticeship or further learning.
The UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF), worth over £2.6 billion, will help to level up and create opportunity across the UK. The first skills priority for UKSPF will be to help adults improve their maths skills via the Multiply programme, worth up to £559 million.
The department is also investing £1.6 billion through the National Skills Fund across the 2022 to 2025 financial years, including an investment of up to £550 million to significantly expand Skills Bootcamps, and investment to expand the eligibility for delivery of the Free Courses for Jobs offer, which is now open to more adults.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to help support recruitment of teachers in further education colleges.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The department has launched the national Further Education (FE) Recruitment Campaign and Teach in FE Digital Service, a recruitment campaign that aims to deliver simple, accessible information and comprehensive support for prospective teachers. The campaign is expected to reach millions of prospective FE teaching staff, and target those with valuable experience and skills in industry to train the next generation of technical experts.
The department is also increasing the level of overall investment in the FE sector, which will help colleges to recruit, retain, and develop the staff they need. The 2021 Spending Review made available an extra £1.6 billion for 16-to-19 education in 2024/25 financial year compared with 2021/22. In the 2023/24 financial year, the department will be using £125 million of available funding to invest an extra £85 million to support all institutions’ costs by increasing the national funding rate by 2.2% from £4,542 in 2022/23 to £4,642, along with investing £40 million in subject specific funding, including through uplifting 16-to-19 programme costs weights for engineering, construction and digital sector subject areas. This will support additional costs of recruiting and retaining teachers in this high value, vocational provision.
The department is providing bursaries worth up to £26,000 tax-free per individual, to support FE teacher training in priority subject areas for 2022/23.
A teacher training apprenticeship for those planning to work in the FE sector has recently been updated and strengthened, and employers can use levy funding of up to £7,000 per apprentice to put their new teachers through a high quality work-based training programme.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many contracts were awarded to Surgo Construction relating to the (a) construction, (b) repair and (c) maintenance of schools in each of the last five years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
There have been no contracts awarded by my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, to Surgo Construction in the last five years, comprising calendar years 2018 to 2022.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will extend the 30 hours free childcare provision to student (a) midwives, (b) nurses and (c) paramedics.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Shadow Minister (Equalities)
The government is not currently planning to extend 30 hours free childcare. The department recognises the value of parents continuing in education and provides a range of support for students in further or higher education to support them with childcare.
Support available to students includes the Childcare Grant and Parents’ Learning Allowance. These schemes are available for full-time students with dependent children, including student nurses, midwives and paramedics.
For additional financial support to help with childcare costs, since September 2020, all eligible nursing, midwifery, paramedic and other allied health profession students have received a non-repayable training grant of a minimum of £5,000 per academic year. Eligible students with child dependants can also access a further £2,000 per academic year.
Additionally, all parents are eligible for the universal 15 hours of free early education which is available to all three and four-year olds, regardless of family circumstances.
Working parents of three and four-year-olds may also be eligible for an additional 15 hours of free childcare if they earn the equivalent of 16 hours a week at national minimum/living wage and under £100,000 per year. Students who participate in paid work in addition to their studies and meet the income requirements will be eligible for the additional hours.
Parents who meet these income criteria may also be able to receive support from Tax-Free Childcare, which can be worth up to £2,000 per year for children aged 0-11, or up to £4,000 per year for disabled children aged 0-16.
Further information on the childcare offers available to parents can be accessed at: https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/.
The department remains committed to improving the cost, choice, and availability of childcare, and we continue to look at ways to make childcare more affordable and to encourage families to use government-funded support they are entitled to.