Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many level 7 Chartered Town Planning Apprenticeships have been (a) started and (b) completed in each year for which data is available.
Answered by Janet Daby
The number of starts and achievements on level 7 ‘Chartered Town Planner’ apprenticeship courses in England can be found in the ‘Apprenticeships’ accredited official statistics publication, which is available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/588ac458-07a8-46d4-2dfe-08dd9f6d0ac9.
The link above includes data published in March 2025. The data set includes full-year figures from 2019/20 to 2023/24, and figures from August 2024 to January 2025 for the 2024/25 academic year.
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much funding has been made available for apprenticeships for local authority planning staff since 4 July 2024; and whether her Department has made changes to the eligibility for that funding since that date.
Answered by Janet Daby
The department does not allocate apprenticeship funding to specific apprenticeship standards or industry sectors.
Employers, including local authorities, decide which apprenticeships they offer and when, and can then access funding for apprenticeships training and assessment costs.
The department has not made changes to how employers access funding for apprenticeships since July 2024.
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of pupils transferring from private to state schools on the cost to local authorities of home school transport.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell
Local authorities are required to arrange free home-to-school travel for children of compulsory school age who attend their nearest school and would be unable to walk there because of the distance, their special educational needs, disability or mobility problem, or because the route is unsafe. As such, most pupils do not need home-to-school transport.
Departmental officials work closely with local authorities in relation to home-to-school transport and will continue to engage on this. As set out in HMT’s impact assessment, we expect the level of movement from private to state-funded schools following tax changes to be very small. We have not seen any evidence to contradict our expectations.
Most central government funding for home-to-school travel is provided through the Local Government Finance Settlement (LGFS) administered by the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government. The provisional LGFS makes £69 billion available to local authorities in the 2025/2026 financial year, the majority of which is not ringfenced. Together with local income from council tax and business rates, this will provide a real-terms increase in core spending power of around 3.2%.
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an estimate of the total value of Construction Industry Training Board (a) levies paid and (b) expenditure on (i) apprenticeships and (ii) training in the most recent year for which figures are available.
Answered by Janet Daby
The requested information is contained in the published Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) Annual Report and Accounts (ARA) for 2023/24. The report is available on the CITB’s website and GOV.UK. It can be accessed at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/citb-annual-report-and-accounts-2023-to-2024.
The figure for the 2023/24 period on levies paid is £202 million. Expenditure on apprenticeships was £111.2 million and expenditure on training was £86 million.
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 11 February 2025, to Question 29606, on Asylum: Housing, how many unaccompanied asylum seeking children are supported by local authorities broken down by per council.
Answered by Janet Daby
Information on the number and proportion of looked after children, including unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, is submitted to the department on an annual basis and was last published on 14 November 2024 at local authority level in our statistical release. The statistical release is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoptions.
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to make the Chartered Town Planner Level 7 Apprenticeship exempt from any reforms in access to the new Growth and Skills Levy.
Answered by Janet Daby
The government is committed to creating opportunities and economic growth supported by a strong skills system.
There are tough choices that need to be taken on how funding should be prioritised in order to generate opportunities for young people, who too often have been locked out of accessing these opportunities that enable them to make a start in good, fulfilling careers. Following reforms to apprenticeships, including the introduction of the apprenticeship levy in 2017, apprenticeship starts by young people under 25 fell by almost 40% between the 2015/16 and 2023/24 academic years. The department will therefore be asking more employers to step forward and fund a significant number of Level 7 apprenticeships themselves outside of the levy-funded growth and skills offer.
The department is taking advice from Skills England, who engaged with employers on funding for Level 7 apprenticeships over the autumn, and the department expects to make a final decision on affected apprenticeships shortly.
The department recognises that for some employers, Level 7 apprenticeships form an important part of their workforce and career development offers. Employers will still be able to offer and invest in these apprenticeships where they feel they provide a good return on their investment.
Learners who have started these apprenticeships will be funded through to completion.