Asked by: Ivan Lewis (Independent - Bury South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that secondary schools are not in deficit.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government has protected the core schools budget in real terms. That means that in 2017-18 schools will have more funding than ever before for children’s education, totalling over £40 billion.
The most reliable way of looking at schools’ financial health is to look at their cumulative deficits. The number of maintained schools reporting cumulative deficits has fallen since 2010-11. Fewer than 4% of academies reported cumulative deficits in their latest financial accounts (2014/15).
To support schools to improve their financial health and efficiency we have produced a collection of tools, information and guidance, including benchmarking tools and workforce planning guidance to support schools to make savings.
Most recently, we published the Schools’ Buying Strategy to help schools make significant savings, over £1bn a year by 2019-20, in non-pay and procurement costs.
Asked by: Ivan Lewis (Independent - Bury South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the finding of the National Audit Office in its report entitled, Financial Sustainability of Schools, published in December 2016, that schools are ill-equipped to implement the planned £3 billion in savings by the end of the current Parliament.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government has protected the core schools budget in real terms. That means that in 2017-18 schools will have more funding than ever before for children’s education, totalling over £40 billion.
The National Audit Office (NAO) report is clear that it is reasonable to look to schools to make efficiencies, and that – based on variations in spending across schools with similar levels of challenge and achieving similar outcomes – the necessary savings are achievable without affecting educational outcomes.
To support this we have produced tools, information and guidance for schools. Most recently, we published the Schools’ Buying Strategy, to help schools make significant savings, over £1bn a year by 2019-20, in non-pay and procurement costs.
We have also launched Workforce Planning Guidance, which contains links to advice and case studies, as well as lists of options and questions for school leaders to consider when reviewing their staff structures.
We will continue to update and improve the package of support we offer to schools.
Asked by: Ivan Lewis (Independent - Bury South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to reduce the incidence of gender segregation in some Muslim independent schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Independent schools have to meet the standards set in regulations. If segregation results in disadvantage for pupils of one gender, either directly or through inappropriate modelling of gender roles through staff segregation visible to pupils, then it is likely that the standards have not been met and regulatory action by this Department will follow. If there is a possibility that staff segregation disadvantages staff of one gender and there may be a direct breach of the Equality Act 2010, we will not hesitate to make a referral to the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
Asked by: Ivan Lewis (Independent - Bury South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Government is taking to increase teacher recruitment in schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Ensuring there are high quality teachers in all schools is crucial to achieving our ambition of educational excellence everywhere. That is why the Government is investing over £1.3 billion to 2020 to attract new teachers into the profession. Our investment includes tax-free training bursaries worth up to £30,000 for top graduates in priority subjects in addition to grants to support new teachers who want to earn a salary whilst they train.
We are continuing to support the expansion of the prestigious Teach First scheme which is now Britain’s largest graduate employer, and places top graduates in schools in disadvantaged areas.
We are also offering training and support to former teachers to help them return to the classroom and have launched the National Teaching Service, which will place up to 1,500 outstanding teachers and middle leaders into the schools who need them most.
To ensure that schools can play a leading role in selecting and training the teachers that they need, we have significantly expanded school-based routes into teaching so that over 50 per cent of trainees are now training through school-led programmes.
Teaching continues to be a hugely popular career for top graduates and career changers, and we now have more, better-qualified teachers in our classrooms than ever before.