Asked by: John Cryer (Labour - Leyton and Wanstead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the (a) nature and (b) value was of all (i) contracts, (ii) consultancies and (iii) other services placed with the accountancy firms (A) Deloitte & Touche, (B) Ernst & Young, (C) KPMG and (D) PricewaterhouseCoopers in each year since 2010-11 by (1) their Department, (2) any predecessor Departments and (3) departmental agencies.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Details of Government contracts from 2016 above £10,000 are published on Contracts Finder, which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/contracts-finder.
Asked by: John Cryer (Labour - Leyton and Wanstead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many students on a 16 to 19 study programme and without a GCSE grade C or above in English, did not study either a GCSE or an approved alternative qualification in English in 2013-14.
Answered by Nick Boles
Data on study and attainment by 16-18 year old students without a grade C or above in English and/or mathematics relating to 2013/14 is not yet available, but is due to be published on www.gov.uk in September 2015.
Data for the 2012/13 academic year was published in September 2014 at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/level-1-and-2-english-and-maths-16-to-18-students-2012-to-2013
Asked by: John Cryer (Labour - Leyton and Wanstead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many students on a 16 to 19 study programme and without a GCSE grade C or above in mathematics, did not study either a GCSE or an approved alternative qualification in mathematics in 2013-14.
Answered by Nick Boles
Data on study and attainment by 16-18 year old students without a grade C or above in English and/or mathematics relating to 2013/14 is not yet available, but is due to be published on www.gov.uk in September 2015.
Data for the 2012/13 academic year was published in September 2014 at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/level-1-and-2-english-and-maths-16-to-18-students-2012-to-2013
Asked by: John Cryer (Labour - Leyton and Wanstead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many (a) academies and (b) free schools that opened between September 2010 and August 2014 have not voluntarily signed up to the school food standards to date.
Answered by David Laws
The Department for Education does not hold this data.
Revised school food standards regulations for local authority maintained schools, academies that opened prior to September 2010 and academies and free schools in England entering into a funding agreement from June 2014 will come into effect on 1 January 2015.
The authors of the School Food Plan are encouraging academies and free schools to commit voluntarily to the new standards. 99% of those academies which responded to a survey by the School Food Trust in 2012 said they were committed to following the new food standards. All academies and free schools signing their funding agreements from spring 2014 are required to adhere to the new, less bureaucratic school food standards.
Asked by: John Cryer (Labour - Leyton and Wanstead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the maximum amount of time is that a salary has been paid to a staff member of a free school before that school opened.
Answered by Edward Timpson
Once an application to establish a free school, university technical college or studio school has received initial approval to proceed to the pre-opening stage, the Department for Education provides a grant to the proposer group to help cover essential non-capital costs, including appropriate salary costs, up to the point at which the school opens. The rates at which these grants are paid are published in the department’s guidance for free school proposer groups (at paragraph 6.11 on page 38), which is published online at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/free-school-pre-opening-guide
Information about how many staff were paid a salary before a particular school opened, how much was paid to staff in total, which groups made such payments and how long salaries were paid before opening is not collected centrally. However, all academy trusts, including free school trusts, are required to comply with company and charity law regarding the preparation of financial statements. Where the trust has a signed funding agreement with the Department for Education, the financial statement must comply with the Academies Accounts Direction. This direction sets out the requirements relating to financial statements, including details of expected staffing disclosures.
Asked by: John Cryer (Labour - Leyton and Wanstead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many staff members in all open free schools were paid a salary for their work with that school before its opening; and how much has been paid to such staff in total.
Answered by Edward Timpson
Once an application to establish a free school, university technical college or studio school has received initial approval to proceed to the pre-opening stage, the Department for Education provides a grant to the proposer group to help cover essential non-capital costs, including appropriate salary costs, up to the point at which the school opens. The rates at which these grants are paid are published in the department’s guidance for free school proposer groups (at paragraph 6.11 on page 38), which is published online at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/free-school-pre-opening-guide
Information about how many staff were paid a salary before a particular school opened, how much was paid to staff in total, which groups made such payments and how long salaries were paid before opening is not collected centrally. However, all academy trusts, including free school trusts, are required to comply with company and charity law regarding the preparation of financial statements. Where the trust has a signed funding agreement with the Department for Education, the financial statement must comply with the Academies Accounts Direction. This direction sets out the requirements relating to financial statements, including details of expected staffing disclosures.
Asked by: John Cryer (Labour - Leyton and Wanstead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, which free schools have paid how many staff members a salary for their work at that school before its opening; and how much has been spent in total on salaries for such staff.
Answered by Edward Timpson
Once an application to establish a free school, university technical college or studio school has received initial approval to proceed to the pre-opening stage, the Department for Education provides a grant to the proposer group to help cover essential non-capital costs, including appropriate salary costs, up to the point at which the school opens. The rates at which these grants are paid are published in the department’s guidance for free school proposer groups (at paragraph 6.11 on page 38), which is published online at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/free-school-pre-opening-guide
Information about how many staff were paid a salary before a particular school opened, how much was paid to staff in total, which groups made such payments and how long salaries were paid before opening is not collected centrally. However, all academy trusts, including free school trusts, are required to comply with company and charity law regarding the preparation of financial statements. Where the trust has a signed funding agreement with the Department for Education, the financial statement must comply with the Academies Accounts Direction. This direction sets out the requirements relating to financial statements, including details of expected staffing disclosures.
Asked by: John Cryer (Labour - Leyton and Wanstead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, which schools in each region and constituent part of the UK have had construction work (a) started and (b) completed in the Priority School Building Programme.
Answered by David Laws
The Priority School Building Programme (PSBP) is a centrally managed programme set up to address the needs of the schools most in need of urgent repair. Through the programme, 261 schools will be rebuilt or have their condition needs met by the Education Funding Agency (EFA).
The following school buildings have been handed over:
Construction work is continuing at a number of the above schools to demolish the old dilapidated buildings.
As of 13 October, construction work was ongoing at the following 54 schools:
Asked by: John Cryer (Labour - Leyton and Wanstead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many schools in each region and constituent part of the UK are on the Priority School Building Programme.
Answered by David Laws
The Priority School Building Programme (PSBP) is a centrally managed programme set up to address the needs of the schools most in need of urgent repair. Through the programme, 261 schools will be rebuilt or have their condition needs met by the Education Funding Agency (EFA).
The first school opened in May 2014 and all schools within the programme will be delivered by the end of 2017, two years earlier than originally announced.
A full list of the schools in the programme, by region, is published online at: