Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the effect of Government investment in education on pupil outcomes since 2010.
Answered by Nick Gibb
My Rt hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education routinely discusses matters of shared interest with Cabinet colleagues, including my Rt hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Pupil outcomes are, of course, at the heart of the Department’s decision-making.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when she will announce per-school figures under the new National Funding Formula for (a) England and (b) Crawley; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Nick Gibb
We announced the allocations for all schools in England under the National Funding Formula, on 14 September.
Full details are available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-funding-formula-tables-for-schools-and-high-needs.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support through the NHS, social care and voluntary sector her Department provides for child and young person carers helping parents with chronic and terminal illness.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
The government has changed the law to improve how young carers and their families are identified and supported. The Children and Families Act 2014 places a duty on local authorities to identify and assess the needs of all young carers, regardless of who they care for or what type of care they provide. These provisions work alongside those for assessing adults in the Care Act 2014 so that when a young carer is identified the needs of everyone in the family is considered, triggering action from both children’s and adults’ support services.
We funded the Making a Step Change project, which sought to identify, champion and embed best practice around effective integrated whole family pathways between voluntary and statutory sector partners.
In May 2014, NHS England published the ‘Commitment to Carers’ which set out commitments across a range of themes to improve recognition and support for carers, including young carers. As part of NHS England’s work to support young carers, the Young Carers Health Champion Programme was established in July 2016 to support improved health literacy, promote health and wellbeing and develop the capacity of young carers to participate in the planning and development of young carer-friendly services.
There is a wealth of resources that enable local authorities, schools and voluntary sector partners to support young carers and their families, based on evidence of what works. Carers Trust host many of these materials on their websites which can be accessed at either: www.thecarershub.co.uk or: www.makingastepchange.info/.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 4 July 2017 to Question 1477, on schools finance, whether she plans to publish that response before the Autumn Budget Statement.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Queen’s Speech was clear that the Government is determined to introduce a fairer distribution of funding for schools. We are committed to ensure that no school has its budget cut as a result of the new formula.
We received over 25,000 responses to the consultation. We are grateful to all those who expressed their views on school funding and the proposed formula as part of this process. We will publish the response to the consultation in due course.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans her Department has to increase the number of school places in Crawley.
Answered by Edward Timpson
Local authorities are responsible for planning and securing sufficient school places in their area, and supporting them to do so is one of this Government’s top priorities. That is why we have committed to spending £7 billion on school places up to 2021, which along with our investment in the free schools programme we expect to deliver 600,000 new places.
Basic need funding is allocated to local authorities to help them to create new school places. West Sussex received £113 million of basic need funding between 2011 and 2015, which helped to create almost 10,000 new places between 2010 and 2015. These new places include over 1,000 provided by the Gatwick School, an all-through free school in Crawley.
West Sussex has also been allocated a further £85 million to create the places needed by 2019, including in Crawley.
Information on basic need allocations can be found on GOV.UK at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/basic-need-allocations
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to improve the quality of data that it holds about the mental health of looked-after children.
Answered by Edward Timpson
The Department collects Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) scores for children looked-after for at least 12 months. In March 2015, The Department for Education and Department of Health strengthened the statutory guidance 'Promoting the health and wellbeing of looked after children'[1] to include information on how Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaires should be used. The Department wrote to local authorities in 2014 and 2015 to remind them about the purpose and importance of SDQs. Ahead of this year’s data collection (published in September 2016), the Department will also write to Virtual School Heads and Independent Reviewing Officers about the use of SDQs for looked-after children. In addition we are considering how to utilise best practice from local authorities that have had consistently good return rates for SDQ scores in their annual children looked-after data returns.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the level of need for therapeutic support for children following abuse or neglect referred to in her Department's report, entitled Adoption: A vision for change, published in March 2016.
Answered by Edward Timpson
Over 5,200 families received support from the Adoption Support Fund during 2015-16. We estimate that around 6,000 families will be supported in 2016-17 rising to around 8,000 in 2017-18.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to keep children safe on the internet at school and at home; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Edward Timpson
Schools, internet providers and parents all have a role to play in keeping children safe online.
When carrying out their duties to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, all schools and colleges must have regard to the statutory guidance, Keeping children safe in education, which was launched in December 2015. The guidance makes clear that school staff have a responsibility to provide children a safe environment in which they can learn. The guidance also sets out that schools should consider how children are taught about safeguarding, including online safeguarding, through teaching and learning opportunities, as part of a broad and balanced curriculum. We are currently consulting on further strengthening the online safety requirement for schools, to require all schools to have appropriate filters and monitoring systems in place with regards to the schools IT system.
Every school is required by law to have a behaviour policy with measures in place to prevent all forms of bullying, including cyberbullying. We have produced advice for schools on tackling bullying and advice for parents on how to prevent their child from being cyberbullied, as well as how to spot signs that they have been targeted and what steps to take. We are providing £1.3m in 2015-16 to anti-bullying charities to tackle all forms of bullying.
The Government Equalities Office is funding the UK Safer Internet Centre to produce advice for schools on how to keep children safe online. This advice will be available in the spring of 2016.
E-safety has been a statutory requirement within the new computing programme of study since September 2014. The introduction of e-safety content in key stages 1 and 2 reflects the fact that children are increasingly accessing the internet from a young age, and is intended to inform pupils of good practice in staying safe online from an early age.
The Government has encouraged Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to provide parents with the ability to easily filter content in the home. The four major ISPs, BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media, which together constitute an estimated 90% of the UK’s broadband market, have delivered on their commitment to provide an unavoidable choice on whether to install family friendly network level filters to their customers.
We expect social media companies to have robust processes in place to address inappropriate and abusive content on their sites. This includes having clear reporting channels, acting promptly to assess reports, and removing content which does not comply with their acceptable use policies or terms and conditions. Social media can also help signpost vulnerable users to helpful sources of information and support.
Increasingly, children as well as adults access the internet through mobile phones and other mobile devices. The main Mobile Network Operators, EE, O2, Vodafone and Three, which between them cover around 85% of the UK’s mobile connections, all automatically filter age-inappropriate material by default. They have robust processes in place for verifying the age of those seeking to remove the filters.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what progress is being made on the implementation of 30 hours of free childcare for working parents.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
On 1 June 2015, the government introduced a Bill to create a new entitlement to 30 hours of free childcare for working parents of three and four-year-olds.
The entitlement is on track to be implemented early for some families in some areas from September 2016, with full roll-out across England from September 2017. More details will be available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/childcare-bill-policy-statement
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans the Government has to meet the demand for school places in Crawley.
Answered by Edward Timpson
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. We allocate basic need funding to local authorities to help create new school places where they are needed. West Sussex has been allocated £57 million of basic need funding for the period 2015-18. West Sussex also received £113 million between 2011 and 2015, helping to create 8,565 new school places between 2010 and 2014. In addition to this, the Gatwick School, an all-through free school that opened in September 2014, is due to provide 1,020 additional places once at full capacity.
Information on basic need allocations can be found online at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/basic-need-allocations-2015-to-2018