Asked by: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much of the money raised through the apprenticeship levy has been spent by (a) local authority area and (b) region; and how many apprenticeships have been so funded in each (i) local authority (ii) region.
Answered by Anne Milton
Information on the apprenticeship levy collected by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and spent in each local authority or region of the UK is not available in the format requested. Many larger levy-paying employers are headquartered in one region but employ staff across the country meaning that we cannot attribute the levy collected and spent in individual locations. Individual employers have control of the expenditure of apprenticeship funds based on their current and future skills needs.
Information on the number of apprenticeships funded in each region or local authority district is not available. However, we can provide the numbers of apprentices that have had some or all of their apprenticeship supported through levy funds based on their home postcode. Please see the attached files for levy-supported apprenticeship starts by region or local authority district; these figures are from May 2017, when changes to the apprenticeship funding system were implemented following the introduction of the levy, to April 2018.
Asked by: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much money has been collected under the apprenticeship levy by (a) local authority area and (b) region; and (b) how much of that funding has been drawn down by employers to fund apprenticeships.
Answered by Anne Milton
Information on the apprenticeship levy collected by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and spent in each local authority or region of the UK is not available in the format requested.
Many larger levy-paying employers have their headquarters in one region, but they employ staff across the country. This means that we cannot attribute the levy that was collected and spent in individual locations. Individual employers control where apprenticeship funds are spent to meet their current and future skills needs.
Since the introduction of the levy in April 2017, a total of £370 million has been paid to providers on behalf of employers from their apprenticeship levy accounts, as at 30 September 2018. Payments from the apprenticeship service are made one month in arrears.
Asked by: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the (a) number of children with special educational needs not enrolled in a school and (b) effect of those not so enrolled on their development.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
All children of compulsory school age, regardless of their circumstances, are entitled to a full-time education which is suitable to their age, ability, aptitude and any special educational needs (SEN) they may have.
The Children and Families Act 2014 requires local authorities to work with parents, children, and providers to keep the provision for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) under review. Local authorities have a duty to provide suitable education for any pupil of compulsory school age who, because of illness, exclusion or other reasons, would not get suitable education without such provision. The education that is arranged must provide full-time education, unless this would not be in a pupil’s best interests because of their health needs.
Data on the placement of children and young people with an education, health and care (EHC) plan is published in table 1 of the ‘Statements of SEN and EHC Plans, England’ statistical release: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/statements-of-sen-and-ehc-plans-england-2018.
Asked by: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent estimate he has made of the number of school places available for children with special educational needs (SEND) in (a) SEND schools and (b) mainstream schools; and what plans he has to ensure the adequate provision of such places to meet demand.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
In January 2018 local authorities placed 124,886 pupils with education, health and care plans in mainstream schools and academies, and 111,387 pupils in maintained special schools.
The Children and Families Act (2014) requires local authorities to work with parents, young people and providers to keep the provision for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities under review, including its sufficiency.
Local authorities are also able to commission new schools (both special and mainstream) via the free school presumption route, drawing on the basic need and special provision capital funding sources. The department has allocated £265 million of capital funding (over and above basic need funding) to help build new places at mainstream and special schools, and to improve existing places to benefit current and future pupils. We have recently launched a free schools wave, which allows local authorities to set out their case for why a new special free school would benefit their area. We expect to announce the successful local authority areas in early 2019.
Asked by: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the costs to schools of new obligations for mental health support and education; and whether he has plans to allocate additional funding to schools to discharge those obligations.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The proposals set out in the green paper 'Transforming Children and Young people’s Mental Health Provision' do not place new obligations on schools.
The Government will fund the training of a Designated Senior Lead for mental health in every school, but it will be for schools to decide whether to put a lead in place and train them in how to implement a whole school approach to mental health. Around half of schools already have an identified lead for mental health and see the benefits it can bring.
New mental health support teams will provide a trained workforce linked to groups of schools and supervised by NHS staff to meet the needs of children and young people with mild to moderate mental health issues. The teams have the potential to reduce the burden on schools of dealing with mental health issues very significantly. During the initial trailblazer stage of implementation the Department will evaluate how well they work with schools to achieve this.
Schools will be required to teach about mental health as part of our plans to make Health Education compulsory. The Department is currently considering what support schools will need to deliver high-quality teaching, and are seeking views through the consultation on the subject.
Asked by: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of rates of pay for teaching assistants in (a) primary Special Educational Needs schools and (b) secondary Special Educational Needs schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Teaching assistant rates of pay are determined by the head teacher or school employer. They are best placed to use their professional judgment and local understanding to set support staff terms and conditions. For this reason, the Department has no plans to review rates of pay.
Asked by: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the level of retention rates of (a) teachers in secondary Special Educational Needs schools and (b) teaching assistants in Special Educational Needs schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department has recently published retention rates of Newly Qualified Teachers (NQTs), by school type, in the online application that accompanies the fourth Teachers Analysis Compendium: Analysis of teacher supply, retention and mobility. The compendium was published on 27 September 2018 and is available here:[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/teachers-analysis-compendium-4.
The published rates show that NQTs in special schools have slightly higher retention rates than NQTs in the wider school sector.
The information requested regarding retention rates for teaching assistants is not held centrally.
[1] Retention rates data may be selected for the following school types: primary, secondary, and special schools, but are not available for secondary special schools only (special phase retention rates provided combine data for primary and secondary special schools). The retention rates only apply to NQTs that enter service in the year after Initial Teacher Training, not all teachers.
Asked by: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Government is taking to encourage schools to create designated senior leads for mental health.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department for Education’s ‘Supporting Mental Health in Schools and Colleges’ survey showed that 49% of all schools and colleges already have a dedicated lead for mental health.
To support these schools, and provide an incentive for more schools to adopt a Designated Senior Lead for mental health, the Government has committed to funding training for a lead in every school over five years, starting from the 2019/20 academic year. The Department is currently assessing the options for providing sufficient high quality training.
The training will be supported by the other proposals set out in the green paper Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision. The Department’s pilot of training to improve joint working between schools and NHS mental health services has been a success, and will be rolled out nationally. This scheme has already helped around 1,000 schools build better links to specialist services through named points of contact in health and education.
The Government is also funding new Mental Health Support Teams working in or near schools to provide earlier access to a wider range of support and treatments and help reduce mental health problems worsening or developing in the first place. These teams will provide school leads with the specialist support they need from qualified mental health professionals.
Asked by: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans he has to promote professional sport as a career to girls at primary school level.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
It is important that all children are given the opportunity to try different sports and develop their abilities, which might lead to a professional career for some. My right Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, recently made a commitment to the development of a school sport and activity action plan to engage all pupils in sport at school. This work will look at the opportunities that are given to girls.
The government will be engaging with professional sports bodies to develop the action plan. Existing programmes such as Primary Futures and Premier League Primary Stars help pupils to understand the connection between learning and their futures from an early age, including through access to sports personalities and sports-themed maths and English resources.
Through the Primary PE and Sport premium, the government has invested over £920 million of ring-fenced funding to primary schools to improve PE and sport since 2013. From September 2017, this funding was doubled to £320 million per year and allows schools to offer different sports of interest to pupils, participation in more competitive sport and offer extra-curricular sports that appeal to all pupils to develop healthy habits from an early age and a lifelong love of sport and physical activity.
Asked by: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that local authority children’s services receive sufficient funding to support vulnerable young people.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The 2015 Spending Review made available more than £200 billion until 2020 for councils to deliver the local services their communities want to see, including children’s services. In February, Parliament confirmed the 2018-19 settlement for local government, providing a real terms increase in resources available, from £44.3 billion in 2017-18 to £45.1 billion in 2018-19. Funding for children’s services is an un-ring fenced part of the wider local government finance settlement. Local authorities have used this flexibility to increase spending on the most vulnerable children by around a £1 billion since 2010.