Asked by: Olivia Blake (Labour - Sheffield, Hallam)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much of the funding allocated for digital devices, to help support home learning of disadvantaged students, has been spent.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government has committed over £100 million to help schools and young people continue their education at home and access online social care services. We have committed over £14 million on technical support to give schools access to cloud-based education platforms, nearly £6 million to support a new EdTech demonstrator school network, and over £85 million to provide laptops, tablets and 4G internet devices, including security and e-safety packages and their distribution, and to top up the 16 to 19 Bursary Fund.
Asked by: Olivia Blake (Labour - Sheffield, Hallam)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when Government funding will be made available to schools for laptops for remote learning for pupils during the covid-19 lockdown.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government has committed over £100 million to support vulnerable and disadvantaged children in England to access remote education, including by providing laptops, tablets and 4G routers.
The Department is providing laptops and tablets to disadvantaged children who would otherwise not have access and are preparing for examinations in Year 10, receiving support from a social worker or are a care leaver. Where care leavers, children with a social worker at secondary school and disadvantaged children in Year 10 do not have internet connections, we are also providing 4G routers.
Local authorities and academy trusts are best place to identify and prioritise children and young people who need devices. The Department is agreeing the number of devices allocated to each local authority and academy trust based on its estimates of the number of eligible children that do not have access to a device.
Asked by: Olivia Blake (Labour - Sheffield, Hallam)
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) extending the 30 hours of free childcare available to parents of pre-schoolers to the parents of older children and (b) extending that provision to parents of pre-school age children who may have already started school but now require childcare during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Vicky Ford
We want parents to have access to a range of affordable childcare, giving them increased flexibility in their working hours and helping children thrive in the crucial early years. The government-funded early years entitlements deliver 15 or 30 hours a week of free, high quality and flexible childcare for eligible 2 year olds, 3 year olds and 4 year olds for 38 weeks a year.
There are currently no plans to extend the 30 hours entitlement to the parents of older children. Vulnerable children and the children of critical workers are able to attend school at the moment.
There is support available for parents with childcare costs outside of the free early education entitlements. Tax-Free Childcare can save parents up to £2,000 per child on their annual childcare bill for children aged under 12 (or for children up to 17 for children with special educational needs or disabilities). Eligible families can also receive help with 85% of their childcare costs through Universal Credit, subject to a monthly limit. For further information, please visit https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/.
Asked by: Olivia Blake (Labour - Sheffield, Hallam)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support he plans to provide to parents who are key workers on irregular or weekend hours and who previously relied on now self-isolating family members to provide childcare during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Vicky Ford
Early years and childcare settings are open for children whose parents are critical workers, and they are encouraged to attend.
We want to make sure that every single critical worker has access to childcare that gives them peace of mind whilst they are carrying out their important work.
Where critical workers are unable to access the childcare they need, they should contact their local authority. The local authority will help them make suitable arrangements. We are working with local authorities to support them to do this.
Asked by: Olivia Blake (Labour - Sheffield, Hallam)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how the value of food vouchers in the covid-19 free school meals voucher scheme was calculated.
Answered by Vicky Ford
As my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer have both made clear, the government will do whatever it takes to support people affected by Covid-19.
During this period, we are asking schools to support pupils eligible for benefits-related free school meals by providing meals or food parcels through their existing food providers wherever possible. We know that many schools are successfully delivering food parcels or arranging food collections for eligible children and we encourage this approach where it is possible.
However, we recognise that providing meals and food parcels is not a practicable option for all schools. That is why, on 31 March, we launched a national voucher scheme as an alternative option, with costs covered by the Department for Education.
Voucher codes are being processed and many thousands of families are redeeming them. As of 28 April, our supplier Edenred reported that over 16,500 schools had placed orders for the scheme. As of Monday 4 May, Edenred has reported that over £47 million worth of voucher codes has been redeemed into supermarket eGift cards by schools and families through the scheme.
Schools are able to order a single voucher to the value of £15 each week for every child eligible for benefits-related free school meals who is not attending school. This is more generous than the weekly amount provided to schools for provision of free school meals, recognising that families will not buy in bulk and will therefore not be able to achieve the same economies of scale.
Asked by: Olivia Blake (Labour - Sheffield, Hallam)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of students who are entitled to free school meals are participating in the Government's food voucher scheme in (a) South Yorkshire and (b) the UK.
Answered by Vicky Ford
As my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer have both made clear, the government will do whatever it takes to support people affected by Covid-19.
During this period, we are asking schools to support pupils eligible for benefits-related free school meals by providing meals or food parcels through their existing food providers wherever possible. We know that many schools are successfully delivering food parcels or arranging food collections for eligible children and we encourage this approach where it is possible.
However, we recognise that providing meals and food parcels is not a practicable option for all schools. That is why, on 31 March, we launched a national voucher scheme as an alternative option, with costs covered by the Department for Education.
Voucher codes are being processed and many thousands of families are redeeming them. As of 28 April, our supplier Edenred reported that over 16,500 schools had placed orders for the scheme. As of Monday 4 May, Edenred has reported that over £47 million worth of voucher codes has been redeemed into supermarket eGift cards by schools and families through the scheme.
Schools are able to order a single voucher to the value of £15 each week for every child eligible for benefits-related free school meals who is not attending school. This is more generous than the weekly amount provided to schools for provision of free school meals, recognising that families will not buy in bulk and will therefore not be able to achieve the same economies of scale.
Asked by: Olivia Blake (Labour - Sheffield, Hallam)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities have been off-rolled in (a) Sheffield, (b) Yorkshire and (c) the UK.
Answered by Vicky Ford
The department has made clear the practice of off-rolling, whereby children are removed from school rolls without formal exclusion in ways that are in the interests of the school rather than the pupil, is unacceptable. Informal or unofficial exclusions are unlawful and we have previously written to schools to remind them of the rules on exclusions.
A pupil’s name can only be deleted from the admission register on the grounds prescribed in Regulation 8 of the Education (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2006 as amended.
All schools must notify the local authority when a pupil’s name is to be deleted from the admission register under any of the grounds prescribed in Regulation 8, as soon as the ground for removal is met and no later than the time at which the pupil’s name is removed from the register. The information requested the reason pupils are removed from the school register is not held centrally.
We are continuing to work with Ofsted to tackle the practice of off-rolling. Since September 2019, Ofsted’s new education inspection framework details that where inspectors find off-rolling, this will always be addressed in the inspection report, and where appropriate, could lead to a school’s leadership being judged inadequate.
Asked by: Olivia Blake (Labour - Sheffield, Hallam)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much funding his Department has allocated to children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities in (a) Sheffield, (b) Yorkshire and (c) the UK in each of the last five years.
Answered by Vicky Ford
Local authorities are required to provide mainstream schools with sufficient funds to enable them to meet the additional cost of pupils with special educational needs (SEN) and disabilities, up to the value of £6,000. This funding comes from the schools block of the Dedicated Schools Grant.
When the costs of additional support required for a pupil with SEN exceed £6,000, the local authority should also allocate additional top-up funding to cover the excess costs. This top-up funding, and all funding for special schools comes from the local authority’s high needs budget. We recently announced £780 million additional high needs funding for the next financial year, and every local authority will see an increase in high needs funding, of at least 8% per head of population aged 2 to 18. Sheffield is receiving £66.7 million next year. The schools and high needs allocations for Sheffield since 2013-14 are as follows:
Year | Schools funding amount (£ millions) | High needs funding amount (£ millions) |
2015-16 | 303.7 | 52.4 |
2016-17 | 307.9 | 52.8 |
2017-18 | 317.1 | 52.5* |
2018-19 | 321.2 | 55.3 |
2019-20 | 332.5 | 57.2 |
2020-21 | 354.7 | 66.7 |
For Yorkshire and the Humber:
Year | Schools funding amount (£ millions) | High needs funding amount (£ millions) |
2015-16 | 3,243.3 | 436.2 |
2016-17 | 3,278.5 | 442.1 |
2017-18 | 3,334.7 | 476.3 |
2018-19 | 3,389.8 | 512.6 |
2019-20 | 3,474.6 | 531.9 |
2020-21 | 3,657.0 | 616.7 |
For England:
Year | Schools funding amount (£ millions) | High needs funding amount (£ millions) |
2015-16 | 32,168.1 | 5,246.5 |
2016-17 | 32,650.3 | 5,299.9 |
2017-18 | 33,093.6 | 5,826.8 |
2018-19 | 33,684.0 | 6,114.3 |
2019-20 | 34,502.6 | 6,277.5 |
2020-21 | 36,277.8 | 7,072.6 |
*In 2017-18, funding was reallocated between schools and high needs, to better reflect individual local authorities’ spending patterns. This led to an increase in school funding, and a decrease in high needs funding, for Sheffield, which had been spending more of its overall funding on schools, and less on high needs, compared to previous years’ funding allocations.
Asked by: Olivia Blake (Labour - Sheffield, Hallam)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of the availability special educational needs and disability services in schools in Sheffield.
Answered by Vicky Ford
Our ambition is for every local authority and Clinical Commissioning Group to deliver a high quality service for every child or young person with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) conduct inspections of SEND services in local areas. Their inspection of Sheffield, published in 2019, required a Written Statement of Action (WSoA) to improve a number of areas of significant concern. Some of these concerns directly relate to SEND provision in schools and weaknesses in commissioning arrangements. Where we have concerns with performance, as there are in Sheffield, the department works with partners, including National Health Service (NHS) England, to support and challenge local areas to improve. This includes regular advice and monitoring from the department and NHS England advisers, as well as access to funded training opportunities and resources. A revisit from Ofsted and CQC then follows, usually around 18 months after publication of a WSoA.
We recently announced £780 million additional high needs funding, for the next financial year, and every local authority will see an increase in high needs funding, of at least 8% per head of population aged 2 to 18. Sheffield will be receiving £66.7 million next year.
We have also invested a total of £365 million through the Special Provision Capital Fund to help local authorities to create new places and improve facilities for pupils with SEND. Sheffield has been allocated a total of £2.5 million from 2018-19 to 2020-21 through this fund.
In September 2019, we announced a cross-Government SEND Review to improve how children and young people with SEND are supported in a way which is consistent, high quality, and integrated across education, health and care.
Asked by: Olivia Blake (Labour - Sheffield, Hallam)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of (a) primary and (b) secondary school budgets have been spent on tackling mental health problems in (i) Sheffield Hallam constituency, (ii) Yorkshire and (iii) the UK in each of the last five years; and what plans he has to maintain an adequate level of funding for those services in the next five years.
Answered by Vicky Ford
The information requested is not held centrally. The Department for Education does not collect information on the proportion of school budgets which are spent on tackling mental health problems in England. Education policy in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is a matter for the devolved administrations.
The government is making a significant investment to increase mental health support for everyone including young people. The National Health Service (NHS) Long Term Plan set out that funding for mental health services will grow faster than the overall NHS budget, creating a new ringfenced local investment fund worth at least £2.3 billion a year by 2023-24. This includes a commitment that by 2023-24 at least an additional 345,000 children and young people aged 0-25 will be able to access support via NHS England’s funded mental health services, including through new mental health support teams (MHSTs) that will work with a fifth to a quarter of schools and colleges in England by 2023.
The first MHST trailblazer sites were announced in December 2018. Two MHST sites in Yorkshire will deliver six teams in the first wave of implementation, starting this year. Last year, a further five MHST sites, one of which is an existing 18-19 trailblazer, were announced in Yorkshire to deliver a total of 10 further teams between them. Each team is expected to support up to 20 schools and colleges, or a population of around 8,000 children and young people.