Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what (a) estimate he has made of the proportion and (b) assessment he has made of the adequacy of BAME representation among (a) pastoral and (b) disciplinary staff in the education system.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department for Education does not collect data on pastoral and disciplinary staff within the School Workforce Census. The School Workforce Census captures data for non-teaching staff, auxiliary staff, teaching assistants and support staff, as well as for classroom teachers and leadership roles.
BAME teachers represented 9% of the teaching population in state funded schools in November 2018. 9% of classroom teachers, 6% of deputy and assistant headteachers and 4% of headteachers came from BAME backgrounds
11% of non-teaching staff were from a BAME background in November 2018. This was 12% for auxiliary staff and 11% for both teaching assistants and other support staff.
This data is available in Tables 5 and 6 of the publication, School Workforce in England, 2018, available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/school-workforce-in-england-november-2018
Information for 2019 data was published on the 25 June 2020.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans he has to provide financial support to the families of pupils on free school meals in Oxford West and Abingdon constituency during the 2020 school summer holidays.
Answered by Vicky Ford
I refer the hon. Members to the answer I gave on 23 June 2020 to Question 54195.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the number of school playing fields that have been sold in 2020.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department is keen to protect school playing fields and schools are only able to sell playing fields when they demonstrate that the disposal does not impact their curriculum and that they have explored all possible alternatives.
The Department periodically updates a playing field decision list on GOV.UK and the next update will be in July. The Department is currently collating data for this update. The list is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-land-decisions-about-disposals.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate his Department has made of (a) local (b) regional and (c) national levels of participation in remote learning; and what recent assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of remote learning.
Answered by Nick Gibb
As both my right hon. Friends, the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer have made clear, the Government will do whatever it takes to support people affected by COVID-19.
Our latest guidance on remote education during COVID-19 is set out below:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/remote-education-during-coronavirus-covid-19
The Department is continuing to assess the impact of the potential effect of school closure on children and young people’s education attainment, including on remote education. We are working closely with schools, sector organisations, international institutions and across Government to understand the risks to education attainment and wellbeing, and identify the children and young people that need help.
We are committed to ensuring that all children can continue to learn remotely in a number of ways during these very difficult circumstances, and are supporting sector-led initiatives such as the Oak National Academy. This new enterprise has been created by 40 teachers from schools across England. It will provide 180 video lessons for free each week, across a broad range of subjects, for every year group from Reception through to Year 10. By 24 May, over 2.3 million users had visited the Oak Academy site and over 8.6 million lessons had been accessed.
However, it is up to each school to determine how to deliver education to its pupils and we recognise that many schools have already shared resources – both online and printed resources – for children who are at home.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that there is adequate (a) funding for, (b) support for and (c) co-operation between itself and pupil referral units to ensure that those units are able to fulfil their functions during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Vicky Ford
I have set up an alternative provision stakeholder group, formed of senior leaders from across the sector, to help us understand and respond to the specific challenges facing alternative provision schools at this time. I meet this group every month.
The support available to the sector is set out in the department’s guidance on vulnerable children and young people:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-on-vulnerable-children-and-young-people/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-on-vulnerable-children-and-young-people.
Alternative provision schools can claim up to £50,000 to cover additional costs, and local authorities and schools should continue to fund commissioned places in alternative provision until the end of the summer term. This is set out in the department’s financial support guidance:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-financial-support-for-schools/school-funding-exceptional-costs-associated-with-coronavirus-covid-19-for-the-period-march-to-july-2020.
These are rapidly developing circumstances. We continue to keep the situation under review and will keep Parliament updated accordingly.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the cost to the public purse was of consultants advising his Department in each financial year from 2017-18 to 2020-21.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department’s consultancy expenditure is presented in the table below by each financial year as requested from 2017 to 2020.
DfE Consultancy Expenditure | 2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19 |
£M | £M | £M | |
Department | 6.0 | 9.0 | 12.0 |
Agencies | 0.1 | 0.4 | 1.1 |
Non-departmental public bodies | 6.0 | 5.2 | - |
Total | 12.1 | 14.6 | 13.1 |
Expenditure for financial year 2020/21 has not been included as the financial year commenced as of 1 April 2020 and this information has not been released in the public domain. For financial year 19/20 the Department has not published the annual accounts and is waiting sign off and audit approval to release the data. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic an extension for the submission of annual accounts has been applied across Government Departments.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to include (a) Iceland and (b) Lidl in the Edenred free school meals voucher scheme.
Answered by Vicky Ford
These are rapidly developing circumstances; we continue to keep the situation under review and will keep Parliament updated accordingly.
The national voucher scheme for free school meals currently includes a variety of supermarkets. Initially, the scheme included supermarkets that already have e-gift card arrangements in place with our supplier, Edenred, including Asda, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Morrisons, M&S and Waitrose. On Monday 27 April we added Aldi to this list and on Wednesday 29 April we added McColl’s. We have been working with other supermarkets to encourage them to join. Any additional supermarkets would need to have the right infrastructure to deliver e-gift cards across their network of stores.
Schools are best placed to make decisions about the most appropriate free school meal arrangements for eligible pupils during this period. In the first instance, we are asking schools to speak to their catering teams and food suppliers about preparing meals or food parcels that could be collected by or delivered to families that are not in attendance. Where this is not possible, schools can use the national voucher scheme or make alternative voucher arrangements locally. Our guidance for schools sets out that they can be reimbursed for costs incurred where the national voucher scheme is not suitable for their families and this can include alternative voucher arrangements with supermarkets that are not part of the national voucher scheme.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will publish the scientific evidence submitted to his Department in relation to covid-19 on the (a) transmissibility for 0-10 year old children, (b) infection rates for 0-10 children, (c) expected infection and death rates for the children that return to education settings, (d) expected infection and death rates among teaching staff that return to education settings and (e) expected infection and death rates among Black Asian and minority ethnic communities in advance of the decision to begin the phased reopening of schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government has asked schools and nurseries to prepare to open to more young people from 1 June, with protective measures in place, as part of a phased wider opening of schools.
The Children’s Task and Finish Working Group, established by SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies), provided consolidated scientific health advice to Government. Advice from this group was used, alongside other sources of information, to inform decision making on the wider opening schools.
Papers from SAGE meetings are being published in tranches. The first batch was released on 20 March 2020 and further papers were published on 5 May and 22 May 2020, including papers on the wider opening of schools. Further batches will be released regularly.
The list of papers to be released to date is available by following the link below, including a number of schools-related papers. This list will be updated to reflect papers considered at future meetings: https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies-sage-coronavirus-covid-19-response.
In addition, the department has published an explanatory note to accompany SAGE’s findings from the Interdisciplinary Task and Finish Group. This looked specifically at the role of children in transmission and can be found by following the link below:
ONS published analysis of coronavirus (COVID-19) related deaths by ethnic group, England and Wales: 2 March 2020 to 10 April 2020. This provisional analysis has shown that the risk of death involving coronavirus (COVID-19) among some ethnic groups is significantly higher than that of those of white ethnicity. A review, carried out by PHE, will look to understand how different factors -including ethnicity, gender and obesity -can impact on people’s health outcomes from COVID-19. More information can be found by following the link below: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/review-into-factors-impacting-health-outcomes-from-covid-19.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to ensure that Higher Education institutions have adequate funding to ensure their financial sustainability during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Michelle Donelan - Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
The government recognises that the COVID-19 outbreak is bringing significant financial challenges to the higher education (HE) sector and we have been working closely with the sector to monitor the likely impacts.
On 4 May 2020, my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, announced a package of measures to ensure sustainability in HE at a time of unprecedented uncertainty.
We will stabilise the admissions system and reprofile tuition fee payments, expected to be worth £2.6 billion, for providers so that they receive more cash in the first term of the 2020/21 academic year. This will have no impact on students but will allow providers to better manage financial risks over the autumn. This will be available to all providers across the UK.
In reprofiling these payments, we are clear in our expectation that providers should use the cashflow benefits appropriately, taking significant steps to improve efficiencies and manage their finances in order to avoid cashflow problems in the future. Reprofiling in this way is a one-off intervention for the autumn term only, to help providers take all necessary steps now to prepare for the future.
In England, we will also be bringing forward £100 million of quality-related research funding for providers to the current academic year to help to address some of the immediate pressures faced by university research activities.
The department will consider purchasing land and buildings where they can be used for new or expanding schools and colleges in England. This will take place as part of existing programmes and using established procedures. This financial year (across purchases from all suitable vendors, including but not limited to HE providers), we have budgeted up to £100 million to acquire sites for planned projects in England. Details are available on GOV.UK at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-support-package-for-universities-and-students.
These measures are in addition to the unprecedented package of support for businesses already announced by my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which includes the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and a range of business loan schemes, to help pay wages, keep staff employed and support businesses whose viability is threatened by the outbreak.
The government has also confirmed that providers are eligible to apply for its support packages, including business loan support schemes, which the Office for Students (OfS), the regulator in England, estimates could be worth at least £700 million to the sector.
We will only intervene further where we believe there is a case to do so and where we believe intervention is possible and appropriate and as a last resort.
In such instances, we will work with providers to review their circumstances and assess the need for restructuring and any attached conditions. The department will be working with HM Treasury and other government departments to develop this restructuring regime and with the devolved administrations.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what reference to the oral evidence session of the Education Committee on 22 April 2020 on the Inquiry, the impact of covid-19 on education and children’s services, how REACT teams are comprised with regard to (a) staff, (b) volunteers, (c) funding and (d) on the ground support.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Regional Education and Children’s Teams (REACTs) have been established to better co-ordinate how the Department and Ofsted capture information and intelligence about local needs and circumstances in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, whilst also offering support to local authorities where they need it.
There are nine REACTs across England, representing policy areas including vulnerable, children’s social care, special educational needs and disabilities, schools and further education. Membership includes representatives from Ofsted and the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA). Membership is drawn from existing Departmental and Ofsted staff, so does not require additional funding.
REACTs provide a mechanism for the Department to coordinate conversations with local authorities across education and children’s services, preventing duplication. Through those conversations, REACTs discuss matching practical support offers to those local authority areas that require it. Specifically, Ofsted have to date agreed deployment of 242 staff to 114 local authorities, with 98 having started the deployment (as of 11 May 2020). The purpose of these placements is to assist frontline organisations deal with urgent activities related to COVID-19, or by back-filling roles that enable others to deal with urgent activities related to COVID-19, for example in contacting and tracking vulnerable children.