Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact on the Teachers' Pension Scheme in the event that independent schools and private academy trusts withdraw from that scheme.
Answered by Robin Walker
The Teachers’ Pensions Scheme (TPS) is principally designed and operated to support recruitment and retention of high-quality teaching staff in maintained schools, who constitute the vast majority of TPS members. All maintained schools, including academy trust schools, are required to participate in the TPS for their teaching staff.
Independent schools participate in the TPS voluntarily, with many independent schools already choosing not to participate. Teachers at participating independent schools represent a small proportion of the overall TPS membership.
All public service pension schemes, including the TPS, are subject to actuarial valuations every 4 years. This helps maintain the sustainability of the scheme by taking a fair and reasonable assessment of the current cost of providing pensions into the future and setting contribution rates accordingly. Amongst a wide range of data and assumptions involved, the actuarial valuation process takes account of changes in member numbers.
Any impact from independent schools choosing to cease participating in the TPS will, therefore, be assessed as part of the actuarial valuation currently taking place. This is due to be reported next year. It is too early in the process to predict the impact, but the reduction in future pension benefits being built up will be considered, as will the reduction in contribution income received.
Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference the letter of 23 January 2022 from the Minister of State for Higher and Further Education to hon. Members, if he will list the 25 higher education providers noted in the correspondence where less than half of students who began a degree can expect to (a) graduate and (b) find professional employment or further study within 15 months.
Answered by Michelle Donelan
The Office for Students (OfS) publishes statistics across different aspects of the student lifecycle to help inform regulatory processes.
Proceed, or projected completion and employment from entrant data, is a measure that projects rates of students progressing from entry to first degree programmes through to positive graduate destinations. This has been produced using the methodology described within the research report "Projected completion and employment from entrant data (Proceed)", available here: https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/publications/proceed-updated-methodology-and-results/.
The proceed measure brings together projected data on the number of full time first degree students who complete their studies (completion rates) with data about the progression of recent graduates into professional employment or further study (progression rates). The two components that combine to form the proceed measure (projected completion and graduate progression) are each based on established reporting of that data by the Higher Education Statistics Agency.
The attached table contains an extract of the 25 providers, where the proceed measure was under 50 per cent, meaning less than half of students graduate and find professional employment or further study.
Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)
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 increasing the Funded Early Learning rate given to local authorities for nursery funding to align with the increase in the National Minimum Wage from April 2022.
Answered by Will Quince
At the Spending Review on 27 October 2021, we announced that we are investing additional funding for the early years entitlements worth £160 million in the 2022-23 financial year, £180 million in 2023-24 and £170 million in 2024-25, compared to the current year. This is for local authorities to increase hourly rates paid to childcare providers for the government’s free childcare entitlement offers and reflects cost pressures, like the increase in the national minimum wage, as well as anticipated changes in the number of eligible children.
For 2022-23 we will increase the hourly funding rates for all local authorities by 21p an hour for the two-year-old entitlement and, for the vast majority of areas, by 17p an hour for the three and four-year-old entitlement. Uplifted funding rates for each local authority for 2022-23 were published on 25 November 2021: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-funding-2022-to-2023.