Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 4 December 2020 to Question 122787 on Apprentices, what support he plans to provide for employers who are unable to fund a laptop for an apprentice to enable that apprenticeship to continue.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
We are committed to supporting apprentices and employers to safely continue with, and complete, their programmes during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Following the announcement of a new national lockdown on 4 January 2021, employers and training providers must ensure that training and assessment takes place remotely. Face to face training and assessment can continue for vulnerable young apprentices – which includes 16 to 18 year olds who may have difficulty engaging with remote training and assessment at home due to a lack of IT equipment or connectivity – and in employers’ COVID-secure settings where it is essential for workers to attend their workplace, and where it is safe and practical to do so.
Employers are responsible for providing their employees, including apprentices, with the tools they need to work remotely and should support apprentices with the digital resources they need to also continue their apprenticeship training remotely.
To support businesses during this time, we have extended the incentive payments for employers of up to £2,000 for each new apprentice they hire until 31 March 2021. Employers can use this funding to help meet any of the costs associated with supporting a new apprentice in the workplace, including providing laptops and other resources for learning.
Where it is not possible and practicable for the apprentice to continue training, a break in learning can be agreed and the apprentice may return to learning at a future date. Our guidance can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-apprenticeship-programme-response.
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 3 December 2020 to Question 122780 on Uni Connect Programme: Finance, what assessment he has made of the effect of the timetable for a funding decision for Uni Connect on (a) staff delivering and (b) the continuity of that programme.
Answered by Michelle Donelan
The Uni Connect outreach programme operated by the Office for Student (OfS) has, since its inception in 2017, established 29 regional partnerships of universities, colleges, employers and other local partners, to provide sustained outreach to young people in schools and colleges in areas with low or unexplained gaps in higher education (HE) participation. The programme has been successful in addressing cold spots in outreach and enabling engagement from schools and colleges. Funding this programme has embedded a collaborative approach to widening access and enabled local partners to galvanise action around higher education outreach to complement the funding already spent by HE Providers on outreach as part of their Access and Participation Plans.
The initial investment in the Uni Connect programme to establish a collaborative model and set up a regional infrastructure comes to an end in July 2021, so it is an appropriate time to consider the scope and objectives of the programme, including funding other areas of increasing importance for students and prospective students, particularly in light of the COVID-19 outbreak.
The OfS is currently consulting on the future of Uni Connect and will want to consider all aspects of the programme including the impact of any changes on staff and the continuity of the programme. The OfS has provided partnerships with programme-wide updates at regular meetings with Programme Leads and Chairs, regarding the next phase of funding for Uni Connect. These updates have been clear that decisions about future funding for academic year 2021/2022 will be subject to decision making from spring 2021 by the OfS, in light of the teaching grant available and having regard to general duties, public sector equality duty and statutory guidance.
My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, writes annually to the OfS, setting out the available teaching grant funding, and will issue the letter for 2021/2022 in due course.
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 potential merits of a long-term approach to funding (a) Uni Connect and (b) other social mobility projects to enable them to establish themselves and demonstrate their effect.
Answered by Michelle Donelan
The Uni Connect outreach programme operated by the Office for Student (OfS) has, since its inception in 2017, established 29 regional partnerships of universities, colleges, employers and other local partners, to provide sustained outreach to young people in schools and colleges in areas with low or unexplained gaps in higher education (HE) participation. The programme has been successful in addressing cold spots in outreach and enabling engagement from schools and colleges. Funding this programme has embedded a collaborative approach to widening access and enabled local partners to galvanise action around higher education outreach to complement the funding already spent by HE Providers on outreach as part of their Access and Participation Plans.
The initial investment in the Uni Connect programme to establish a collaborative model and set up a regional infrastructure comes to an end in July 2021, so it is an appropriate time to consider the scope and objectives of the programme, including funding other areas of increasing importance for students and prospective students, particularly in light of the COVID-19 outbreak.
The OfS is currently consulting on the future of Uni Connect and will want to consider all aspects of the programme including the impact of any changes on staff and the continuity of the programme. The OfS has provided partnerships with programme-wide updates at regular meetings with Programme Leads and Chairs, regarding the next phase of funding for Uni Connect. These updates have been clear that decisions about future funding for academic year 2021/2022 will be subject to decision making from spring 2021 by the OfS, in light of the teaching grant available and having regard to general duties, public sector equality duty and statutory guidance.
My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, writes annually to the OfS, setting out the available teaching grant funding, and will issue the letter for 2021/2022 in due course.
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the effect (a) Uni Connect and (b) other outreach projects on people from disadvantaged young people during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Michelle Donelan
The Uni Connect outreach programme operated by the Office for Student (OfS) has, since its inception in 2017, established 29 regional partnerships of universities, colleges, employers and other local partners, to provide sustained outreach to young people in schools and colleges in areas with low or unexplained gaps in higher education (HE) participation. The programme has been successful in addressing cold spots in outreach and enabling engagement from schools and colleges. Funding this programme has embedded a collaborative approach to widening access and enabled local partners to galvanise action around higher education outreach to complement the funding already spent by HE Providers on outreach as part of their Access and Participation Plans.
The initial investment in the Uni Connect programme to establish a collaborative model and set up a regional infrastructure comes to an end in July 2021, so it is an appropriate time to consider the scope and objectives of the programme, including funding other areas of increasing importance for students and prospective students, particularly in light of the COVID-19 outbreak.
The OfS is currently consulting on the future of Uni Connect and will want to consider all aspects of the programme including the impact of any changes on staff and the continuity of the programme. The OfS has provided partnerships with programme-wide updates at regular meetings with Programme Leads and Chairs, regarding the next phase of funding for Uni Connect. These updates have been clear that decisions about future funding for academic year 2021/2022 will be subject to decision making from spring 2021 by the OfS, in light of the teaching grant available and having regard to general duties, public sector equality duty and statutory guidance.
My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, writes annually to the OfS, setting out the available teaching grant funding, and will issue the letter for 2021/2022 in due course.
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when he plans to implement covid-19 lateral flow testing for staff working in the maintained and private nursery sector.
Answered by Vicky Ford
Rapid, regular testing for people without symptoms of COVID-19 has been made available across the country from week commencing 11 Jan with the eligibility of the community testing programme expanded to cover all 317 local authorities.
The best way currently for those in private early years settings and childminders to access asymptomatic testing is via the community testing programme. Local authorities have been encouraged to target testing at critical workers such as early years staff during the national lockdown. We continue to look at more direct approaches.
We are rolling out our asymptomatic testing programme to primary schools, who will receive testing kits for staff this week. This includes schools-based nurseries and maintained nursery schools. The asymptomatic testing programme will offer all primary school, schools-based nursery and maintained nursery school staff home Lateral Flow Device (LFD) test kits for routine testing.
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 steps schools need to take to conduct the January 2021 school census during the covid-19 England national lockdown.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Following the recent announcement made on 4 January 2021 by my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister, and as part of our ongoing work to help manage the burden on educational and care settings, the Department has reviewed all data collections (including the school census) to ensure that they remain both necessary and feasible at this time. This review has included consultation with a subset of external representatives from the sector.
As the scope of the school census is all children on the school’s admission register, rather than those physically in attendance on census day or census week, the majority of data schools need to return should be information they already hold. As such, the requirements on schools for the school census collection are not directly impacted by the national lockdown. However, where relevant, we have updated and clarified the guidance for the small subset of data collected which refer to the situation on census day (namely information on class activity and take up of free school lunches by infant pupils).
The data collection will remain open for schools to make a return for at least 8 weeks until 17 March 2021. We also have a dedicated service available to support, and work with, schools having any difficulties.
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 on college finances of the disproportionally low payment made by ESFA for 16-18 provision in March 2020, which leaves the sector under-funded by around 6% according to the Association of Colleges.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
The existing payment profile is based on the academic year (August to July) and is based on historical analysis. It takes into consideration the higher costs faced by colleges early in the year, as well as varying profiles in other months. Currently, colleges receive payments that are higher than the flat profile in the autumn and lower monthly payments over the winter that lead to the ‘shortfall’ in the spring, as identified by the Association of Colleges.
We have no plans at this time to change the profile; it has been used for many years and is well understood by colleges. However, this academic year has seen a significant boost to levels of funding for 16-19 education. The government previously announced in August 2019 that it will invest an extra £400 million in 16-19 education in 2020-21. This is the largest injection of money in a single year since 2010 and represented an increase of 7% in overall 16-19 funding. The base rate of 16-19 funding has since increased by 4.7% this academic year 2020/21, from £4,000 to £4,188.
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he has taken to ensure that disadvantaged students without laptops and IT software studying at further education colleges are not digitally excluded.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
We have encouraged further education providers to use their 16-19 bursary funding to purchase devices and connectivity for disadvantaged students aged 16-19 where this is a barrier to learning. Earlier in the year, additional funding was made available to further education providers via a business case process, to support them with additional costs arising from students participating in education online. In addition, in August 2020, we announced that colleges can access help with device needs for students aged 14-16 attending a further education provider through the ‘Get Help with Technology’ service.
For adults aged 19 and over, we introduced a change to the Adult Education Budget (AEB) funding rules for the 2020/21 academic year to enable providers to use learner support funds to purchase IT devices for disadvantaged students to help them meet technology costs. In areas where the AEB budget is devolved, mayoral authorities determine adult student support arrangements.
In addition, where further education providers are supplementing their on-site education with online learning, our guidance asks colleges to preserve provision on-site for all learners who need it, including learners without access to devices or connectivity at home.