Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to mitigate the impact of rising inflation on post-16 budgets in schools.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2021 (SR21) settlement will provide an extra £1.6 billion for 16-19 education in 2024/25 compared with the 2021/22 financial year in real terms, at the time of the announcement in October 2021. This includes funding to cover the rising demographic of students, additional hours for all 16 to 19-year-olds, aid the recovery of lost learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and for increased take-up of T Levels.
The well-established system of lagged funding for 16-19 education, including further education colleges, sixth forms and school, provides institutions with clear allocations each year based on student data, allowing them to make plans with confidence. Subject to affordability, where institutions see a particularly large increase in student numbers in a year, they typically qualify for exceptional in-year growth funding to help them with the extra costs of these students.
The department has announced how the additional funding from the SR21 will be used for this academic year, 2022/23, including increasing the 16-19 national funding rate from £4,188 to £4,542, the High Value Courses Premium for the most economically valuable subjects from £400 to £600, and looked-after children and care leaver rates from £480 to £504. This follows the extra £691 million allocated in the previous two years and the specific funding made available to help recovery from the pandemic, including the 16-19 Tuition Fund which will make available £400 million over the four academic years from 2020/21 to 2023/24.
In addition, we are investing £3.8 billion more in further education and skills over the course of the Parliament as a whole, to ensure people can access high-quality training and education that leads to good jobs, addresses skills gaps, boosts productivity, and supports levelling up. This will support the sector to reform and deliver the technical, skilled education our economy needs.
The department is aware of the pressures rising inflation is causing providers of post-16 education. The government has announced the Government Energy Bill Relief Scheme, to support non-domestic customers, including further education colleges, sixth forms and schools. The department will continue to monitor the situation to determine our next steps.
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the report published on 24 October by the Institute for Fiscal Studies on Latest trends in further education and sixth form spending in England, what steps she is taking to ensure Further Education Colleges have sufficient funding to meet increased demand in the next five years.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2021 (SR21) settlement will provide an extra £1.6 billion for 16-19 education in 2024/25 compared with the 2021/22 financial year in real terms, at the time of the announcement in October 2021. This includes funding to cover the rising demographic of students, additional hours for all 16 to 19-year-olds, aid the recovery of lost learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and for increased take-up of T Levels.
The well-established system of lagged funding for 16-19 education, including further education colleges, sixth forms and school, provides institutions with clear allocations each year based on student data, allowing them to make plans with confidence. Subject to affordability, where institutions see a particularly large increase in student numbers in a year, they typically qualify for exceptional in-year growth funding to help them with the extra costs of these students.
The department has announced how the additional funding from the SR21 will be used for this academic year, 2022/23, including increasing the 16-19 national funding rate from £4,188 to £4,542, the High Value Courses Premium for the most economically valuable subjects from £400 to £600, and looked-after children and care leaver rates from £480 to £504. This follows the extra £691 million allocated in the previous two years and the specific funding made available to help recovery from the pandemic, including the 16-19 Tuition Fund which will make available £400 million over the four academic years from 2020/21 to 2023/24.
In addition, we are investing £3.8 billion more in further education and skills over the course of the Parliament as a whole, to ensure people can access high-quality training and education that leads to good jobs, addresses skills gaps, boosts productivity, and supports levelling up. This will support the sector to reform and deliver the technical, skilled education our economy needs.
The department is aware of the pressures rising inflation is causing providers of post-16 education. The government has announced the Government Energy Bill Relief Scheme, to support non-domestic customers, including further education colleges, sixth forms and schools. The department will continue to monitor the situation to determine our next steps.
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to promote (a) recruitment and (b) retention of staff in further education colleges.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The department continues to support the further education (FE) sector with the recruitment, retention, and development of teachers through a package of support in the 2022/23 academic year. This includes a new national FE recruitment campaign and teach in FE service to support prospective FE teachers into jobs. This is expected to reach millions of prospective FE teaching staff, and target those with valuable experience and skills in industry to train the next generation of technical experts. Our Taking Teaching Further programme is supporting industry experts to move into FE teaching, and the department is providing bursaries worth up to £26,000, each tax-free, which are available to support FE teacher training in priority subject areas for 2022/23. We are also investing in the quality of existing FE teachers through the T Level Professional Development programme, which has supported over 15,000 staff to deliver the new T Level qualifications.
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of childcare provision in Bristol South constituency.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Shadow Minister (Equalities)
The key measure of sufficiency of childcare provision is whether the supply of available places is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents and children. Ofsted data currently shows that the number of places offered by providers on the Early Years Register has remained broadly stable at 1.3 million places since August 2015.
Officials from the department also discuss sufficiency of provision in regular conversations with local authorities.
Under Section 6 of the Childcare Act 2006, local authorities are responsible for ensuring sufficient childcare places in their area. The department has not been made aware by any local authority of any current sufficiency problem. Bristol City Council, which holds the statutory duty to secure sufficient childcare in Bristol South constituency, is not reporting any issues around provision.
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the effect of the reduction in apprenticeship starts at Levels 2 and 3 on social mobility in deprived areas.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
We want to ensure that more people from disadvantaged backgrounds can undertake apprenticeships, particularly those that offer higher wage returns and progression opportunities, and we continue to look at how the programme is supporting those from deprived areas.
Employers decide which apprenticeships they offer and when in order to address their skills needs. High-quality apprenticeships at levels 2 and 3 remain an important part of our programme, supporting people from all backgrounds to gain the skills they need to begin or progress in their career. In the first half of 2020/21 academic year, there were 110,500 apprenticeship starts at levels 2 and 3 - over two-thirds of all starts in this period.
We are supporting more people from disadvantaged and under-represented backgrounds to access apprenticeships through our Apprenticeship Diversity Champions Network of over 85 employers. The Network promotes best practice in recruiting and supporting apprentices from diverse backgrounds. In addition, our Apprenticeships Support and Knowledge programme supports schools across England to provide students from diverse backgrounds with information on apprenticeships.
Smaller employers play an important role in providing apprenticeship opportunities across the country, particularly for young people and those in deprived areas. To support more smaller employers to offer apprenticeships all SMEs can now reserve funding for up to 10 new apprenticeship starts in 2021-22 financial year. Employers of all sizes can also benefit from the increased incentive payment of £3000 for taking on an apprentice as a new employee.
Through our Plan for Jobs, we are also providing a range of support to help young people from disadvantaged backgrounds access high-quality training to develop the skills, experience, and confidence to obtain an apprenticeship. We are supporting the largest-ever expansion of traineeships, providing funding for an additional 30,000 places in 2020/21 academic year, and we are working with the Department for Work and Pensions to enable Kickstart placements to turn into apprenticeships where that is the right thing for the employer and the young person. We have made a special provision to allow employers taking on Kickstarters as apprentices to be eligible for the incentive payment, supporting a pathway between the schemes.
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the effect of the T-level roll out for 2021-22 on social mobility in deprived areas.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
T Levels are new, gold standard qualifications that, when fully rolled out, will boost access to high-quality technical education for thousands of young people so they can progress to the next level, whether that is getting a job, going on to further study or an apprenticeship. Designed by over 250 leading employers, T Levels will have real currency in the labour market and help more young people from all backgrounds to access skilled work.
From September 2021, over 100 providers situated across the country will deliver T Levels and we have ensured they are represented in Opportunity Areas. The rollout of T Levels will continue with all 24 subjects available by 2023. T Levels started in September 2020, so students have yet to complete their courses. The department has an evaluation programme in place to assess the impact of T Levels, which will include consideration of the impact on disadvantaged students and groups, but it will take some years to assess the full impact of the programme for disadvantaged students and for social mobility.