Asked by: Ian Mearns (Labour - Gateshead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made on the effect of covid-19 on the availability of support and training for post-16 students; and whether his Department plans to publish guidance on post-16 education and training due to begin in September 2020.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
Training is vital in order to provide the highly skilled workforce that employers need to support the recovery from the COVID-19 outbreak.
We have supported further education providers and introduced a range of flexibilities, including encouraging online delivery, so that as many learners as possible can successfully complete their courses. We have also ensured that furloughed workers are able to start apprenticeships.
We have frequently engaged with further education providers to monitor the level of training that they are able to deliver and we have been actively working with them to address issues. From 15 June, providers should begin to offer some face to face contact to 16 to 19 learners in the first year of a 2-year study programme. We want to have all learners back into education settings, as soon as the scientific advice allows, because it is the best place for them to learn and because we know how important it is for their mental wellbeing to have social interactions with their peers and teachers.
We will also continue to work with providers and employers to ensure that they deliver the skills that our workers and economy need. This includes looking at ensuring that we support employers, especially small businesses, to take on new apprentices this year. In addition, we have launched a new online Skills Toolkit to provide free high quality digital and numeracy courses, the skills most sought after by employers. We have also already announced that we are providing an extra £3 billion over the course of this Parliament for a new National Skills Fund to help people learn new skills.
Our latest guidance on COVID-19 for the post-16 sector and all other educational settings is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-for-schools-and-other-educational-settings. Guidance for education and training that is due to begin in September 2020 will be published in due course.
These are rapidly developing circumstances; we continue to keep the situation under review and will keep Parliament updated accordingly.
Asked by: Ian Mearns (Labour - Gateshead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what safeguards are in place to ensure that people that apply to be foster carers during the covid-19 outbreak are (a) vetted and (b) trained to ensure the safety of the children in their care.
Answered by Vicky Ford
The Fostering Services Regulations 2011 provide a regulatory framework for fostering agencies and local authority fostering services for how they should deliver their functions. The regulations set out the information that fostering service providers must gather about prospective foster carers in order to satisfy themselves of an individual’s suitability to foster. This includes background, health, relationships and criminal checks, for example. It is for these providers to determine how they assess and approve their foster carers locally, within the regulations. The regulations are available here: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2011/581/contents/made.
We recognise that fostering services may want to bring in more foster carers to help build capacity within their services in case of additional demand at this time. In order to assist fostering providers to do this, we have amended parts of the regulatory framework, as described in the Explanatory Memorandum to the Adoption and Children (Coronavirus) Regulations 2020, which are available here: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/445/pdfs/uksiem_20200445_en.pdf.
These allow different parts of the assessment to be undertaken simultaneously, avoiding unnecessary delays. However, the information required in assessing potential foster carers has not been changed nor have the expectations around the preparation of approved foster carers, prior to their first placement.
Asked by: Ian Mearns (Labour - Gateshead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the Government's agreement with Edenred for the provision of the free school meal voucher scheme contains an exclusivity clause which prevents his Department engaging alternative or additional suppliers.
Answered by Vicky Ford
As both my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer have made clear, the government will do whatever it takes to support people affected by COVID-19.
We are encouraging schools to use existing catering arrangements to provide meals or food parcels to pupils who are eligible for free school meals while they are staying at home. Where this is not possible, the Department for Education has developed a national voucher scheme as an alternative.
The government’s contract agreement with Edenred for the provision of the free school meal voucher scheme does not include an exclusivity clause and we are able to engage with alternative or additional suppliers, should this be required. We have no plans to do this at this time.
Schools are best placed to determine what's most appropriate locally, and are free to make their own arrangements outside the national voucher scheme. Our guidance for schools sets out that they can be reimbursed for costs incurred where that scheme is not suitable for their families, including where none of the eight participating supermarkets have branches nearby.
These are rapidly developing circumstances; we continue to keep the situation under review and will keep Parliament updated accordingly.
Asked by: Ian Mearns (Labour - Gateshead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education what the adult education budget is for (a) financial year 2019-20 and (b) academic year 2019-20; and what proportion of that budget is devolved to the seven combined authorities in England.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Adult Education Budget for the financial year 2019-20 is £1.34 billion, of which £52 million is held nationally for traineeships and continuing learners. The 6 Mayoral Combined Authorities and the Greater London Authority have been allocated 49% of the remaining budget.
Asked by: Ian Mearns (Labour - Gateshead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, for what reason gender is a mandatory field on funding applications to the Education and Skills Funding Agency; and whether he plans to make an assessment of the adequacy of that agency's funding application form.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) does not collect ‘gender’ on funding applications to the ESFA – it collects data on ‘sex’. This is in order to ensure that the ESFA has an awareness of whether applications are coming from men or women. The Department regularly reviews policies to ensure they are relevant and up to date.
However, there is no statutory or policy requirement at this time to collect additional information from providers on gender. Amendments and additions to individual learner record data collections also incur costs to the sector and as such, the Department has no right to request it. The responsibility for this level of monitoring sits with the sector and with employers to ensure they are following the law.
Asked by: Ian Mearns (Labour - Gateshead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of (a) children and (b) children eligible for free school meals reached a Good Level of Development at age five in the Gateshead constituency in each of the last three years.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The requested data is shown in the attached table.
Results at local authority level for academic year 2017/18 are due to be published on Thursday 29 November.
Asked by: Ian Mearns (Labour - Gateshead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to ensure that T-level (a) routes are sufficiently flexible to enable learners to change course and (b) qualifications are transferable to allow people a range of career options.
Answered by Anne Milton
We recognise that, as is the case for current provision, some students will choose to change T levels after starting their course. We want to ensure that T level courses accommodate this flexibility.
We will be working with the providers of the first T levels in 2020/21 and 2021/22 to explore how courses could be designed which allow students to change to another T level early on in the course without it affecting their progress. We have also ensured the core component of the T level includes content common across all T levels within a route, which will help support this.
T levels are much broader in content than apprenticeships. Students will learn about a range of different occupations in the sector and develop skills common to each, meaning they will have more options and scope to move occupations once in work.
Asked by: Ian Mearns (Labour - Gateshead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when he plans to publish a response to the feedback on his consultation on the implementation of T-level programmes; and if he will ensure that his response is sufficiently detailed to enable the sector to prepare effectively for the introduction of T-levels in 2020.
Answered by Anne Milton
We ran a public consultation from 30 November 2017 to 8 February 2018 to obtain views on the major aspects of our proposals for implementing T levels. This involved publishing our proposals online, alongside a survey for respondents to complete. The consultation generated 430 responses from a wide range of organisation types and individuals, spanning educational institutions, industry, awarding organisations, representative bodies, local authorities and others. We also held a series of ten consultation events around the country, with over 500 people attending. We are carefully reviewing all responses to the consultation, and will publish a response in due course.
We are planning to introduce the first three T levels from September 2020 and will shortly be announcing the providers who will be delivering these. In the 2017 Spring Budget, we announced further funding, rising to £500 million a year, to cover the additional taught hours and industry placement requirements for T levels. We will be asking providers to complete a data collection about their plans to implement T levels, which we will use to develop a programme of support that will be made available to all providers.
Asked by: Ian Mearns (Labour - Gateshead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to promote the (a) awareness of and (b) the changes relating to T-Levels.
Answered by Anne Milton
We have engaged with a range of key audiences through a number of different channels to increase the understanding of T levels. We published the T level Action Plan last October, which set out our plans for the implementation of T levels and recent policy decisions. This was followed by a series of open engagement events to help raise awareness and ask attendees for their views. The events were well attended and well received.
We ran a public consultation from 30 November 2017 to 8 February 2018 to obtain views on particular elements of our proposals for T levels. The consultation generated 430 responses from a wide range of organisation types. We held ten consultation events around the country, with over 500 people attending. We will publish a response in due course.
In November 2017, the Confederation of British Industry supported the department’s Skills Summit which was attended by over 100 employers and included specific sessions on T levels.
We engage regularly with our delivery partners through various activities as we move closer to first implementation in 2020. For example, we have invited providers to express an interest to deliver the first three T levels in 2020 and to bid for funding to build capacity within their own organisations to deliver industry placements. We have also begun more sustained engagement with employers on the design and delivery of industry placements. Engagement with our key partners will continue to increase as we move further into the implementation phase.
We will increase promotions of T Levels on a frequent basis.
Asked by: Ian Mearns (Labour - Gateshead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to grant Ofsted powers to inspect multi academy trusts.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
There are no plans to grant Ofsted powers to inspect multi academy trusts (MAT) at this time.
Ofsted currently scrutinises MAT performance through focused inspections of schools within the same MAT.
The Department is working with Ofsted to develop new approaches to better scrutinise MATs, and the legal framework already has sufficient provisions to take this forward. We will publish details in due course.