Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Autumn Statement 2023, published on 22 November 2023, which organisations will receive the £7 million funding to help tackle antisemitism in schools and universities in the next three years.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Following the Autumn Statement announcement, the government is preparing to issue an invitation for interested organisations to tender, to tackle anti-semitism in schools, colleges, and universities. The department encourages all interested organisations to consider submitting a bid in response to the invitation to tender.
Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the (a) children's services budget for social care and (b) population was of (i) the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, (ii) Birmingham City Council, (iii) Blackpool Council, (iv) Blackburn with Darwen Council, (v) the City of Bradford Metropolitan Borough Council (vi) the London Borough of Hackney, (vii) Hartlepool Borough Council, (viii) the London Borough of Islington, (ix) Knowsley Council, (x) Hull City Council, (xi) Liverpool City Council, (xii) Leicester City Council, (xiii) Manchester City Council, (xiv) Middlesbrough Borough Council, (xv) Newham London Borough Council, (xvi) Nottingham City Council, (xvii) Oldham Council, (xviii) Rochdale Borough Council, (xix) Salford City Council, (xx) Sandwell Council, (xxi) South Tyneside Council, (xxii) Stoke-on-Trent City Council, (xxiii) Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council, (xxiv) Tower Hamlets London Borough Council and (xxv) the City of Wolverhampton Council in (A) 2018-19, (B) 2019-20, (C) 2020-21, (D) 2021-22 and (E) 2022-23.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
Information on the budget for children’s social care by individual local authorities is collected as part of the Section 251 Budget return. Information is then published in the statistical publication, ‘Planned LA and School Finance’, which is available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/planned-la-and-school-expenditure.
The total budget for children’s social care for the years 2018/19, 2019/20, 2021/22 and 2022/23 for each local authority is available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/64266413-c584-419c-9d84-08db63516a24.
Section 251 Budget was not collected for 2020/21 in order to reduce burdens on local authorities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Information on populations is available from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/datasets/populationestimatesforukenglandandwalesscotlandandnorthernireland.
Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the impact of in-work poverty on educational attainment in children.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
The department considers the attainment of disadvantaged pupils relative to non-disadvantaged pupils using the disadvantage gap index.
The disadvantage gap index is a measure of the difference in attainment between disadvantaged pupils and all other pupils. It considers disadvantaged pupils as any pupils eligible for free school meals (FSM) in the last six years, looked-after children, and previously looked-after children.
In England, key stage 2 and key stage 4 (KS4) data is analysed to show the disadvantage gap. Latest key stage 2 data shows that the primary school attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers has grown between 2019 and 2022, having narrowed over the previous 8 years. Latest KS4 data shows that the disadvantage gap index has widened since 2021 to 3.84, the highest level since 2011/12. The disruption to the nation’s children and young people caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has affected disadvantaged students more than their peers.
The department is committed to helping these pupils to recover and close the attainment gap. That is why our recovery programmes, such as the recovery premium, the National Tutoring Programme, and 16-19 tuition fund, are especially focused on helping the most disadvantaged.
In addition to this, the pupil premium has increased to more than £2.6 billion this year, with per pupil funding rates increasing by 2.7%. This is the highest ever in cash terms.
Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the affordability of childcare provision in Barking constituency.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
The department is committed to improving the cost, choice, and availability of childcare. We continue to look at ways to make childcare more affordable and to encourage families to use the government-funded support they are entitled to.
The department collects data on the main characteristics of childcare and early years provision in England and fees data can be broken down to local authority level.
The latest data shows the average hourly fee for childcare in Barking and Dagenham to be £6.00 for two-year-old children and £5.50 for three and four-year-old children.
Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department has made an assessment on the number of breakfast clubs open in Barking constituency.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
The department is committed to continuing support for school breakfast clubs, and we are investing up to £24 million to continue our national programme until the end of the summer term in 2023. This funding will support up to 2,500 schools in disadvantaged areas, meaning that thousands of children from low-income families will be offered free nutritious breakfasts to better support their attainment, wellbeing, and readiness to learn.
Schools are eligible for the programme if they have 40% or more pupils within bands A-F of the IDACI scale, a nationally recognised indicator of need.
The enrolment process is still underway for schools that wish to sign up to the programme. As of May 2022, over 2,000 schools had signed up. The department does not hold data on school eligibility and food orders at a constituency level, and there are currently no plans to undertake an assessment per local authority. We will continue to work with our supplier, Family Action, to monitor the data on a national level and consider suitable opportunities to share more information on the programme in due course.
Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department has plans to (a) maintain funding to and (b) extend the contract for Family Rights Group’s family advice service beyond March 2022.
Answered by Will Quince
Departmental officials recently wrote to the Family Rights Group stating our intention, subject to internal approvals and business planning, to extend the family and friends advice service contract by 18 months. We expect to give confirmation of our decision early in 2022.
Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 1 March 2017 to Question 64985, on children in care, what information her Department holds on the number of looked-after children attending each (a) primary and (b) secondary school in England in the last 12 months.
Answered by Edward Timpson
The Department collects child-level data on looked after children in England, which is matched to the school census and attainment records in order to identify additional information on the child’s characteristics and educational outcomes. However, the Department does not routinely produce or publish information on looked after children at school level. The information on the numbers of looked after children in each local authority is published in the Children Looked After in England statistical release at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2015-to-2016 and the latest information on the attainment of looked after children is published is in the Outcomes for Children Looked After statistical release at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/outcomes-for-children-looked-after-by-las-31-march-2015.
Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and which (a) primary and (b) secondary schools in England had (i) between 10 and 20 and (ii) more than 20 looked-after children attending such schools in the last 12 months.
Answered by Edward Timpson
This information is not available in the format requested.
Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many times her Department has used the services of (a) PwC, (b) Deloitte, (c) Ernst and Young, (d) KPMG and (e) other consulting firms in the last three financial years; and what (i) work was undertaken and (ii) the cost to the public purse was on each such occasion.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The table below shows a summary of the number of times the department has used (a) PwC, (b) Deloitte, (c) Ernst and Young, (d) KPMG and (e) Other consulting firms in the last three financial years. The table also summarises the work activity and the total payments made to the organisations in each of the financial years.
For PwC, Deloitte, Ernst & Young and KPMG the data reflects all activities which includes consultancy and professional services & advice.
| PwC | ||
| 2013-14 | 2014-15 | 2015-16 |
Number of time used | 4 | 6 | 2 |
Work undertaken | Pension System | Adult Services Framework | Adult Services Framework |
Payments made | £190,261 | £453,081 | £661,231 |
| |||
| Deloitte | ||
| 2013-14 | 2014-15 | 2015-16 |
Number of time used | 7 | 8 | 11 |
Work undertaken | Adoption | Adoption | Social care |
Payments made | £2,132,270 | £7,050,090 | £ 8,760,674 |
| |||
| Ernst & Young | ||
| 2013-14 | 2014-15 | 2015-16 |
Number of time used | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Work undertaken | Financial Advisory Services | Financial Advisory Services | Financial Advisory Services |
Payments made | £471,416 | £608,759 | £343,279 |
| |||
| KPMG | ||
| 2013-14 | 2014-15 | 2015-16 |
Number of time used | 1 | 2 | 3 |
Work undertaken | Consultancy | Teachers AVC report | Accreditation System |
Payments made | £91,321 | £30,880 | £3,298,996 |
| |||
| Other Consultants | ||
| 2013-14 | 2014-15 | 2015-16 |
Number of time used | 197 | 215 | 168 |
Work undertaken | Too many to list | Too many to list | Too many to list |
Payments made | £2,456,852 | £4,274,958 | £2,755,213 |
Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will publish a list of all secondees to her Department from (a) PwC, (b) Deloitte, (c) Ernst and Young, (d) KPMG and (e) other consulting firms in the last three financial years; and what the role was of each of those secondees.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Department for Education hosted four secondments from KPMG in 2013/14. All four individuals were seconded into external assurance roles in the department’s Education and Funding Agency. There were no secondments from PwC, Deloitte, Ernst and Young or any other consulting firm in 2013/14, and none from any consulting firms in 2014/15 or 2015/16.