Asked by: Philip Davies (Conservative - Shipley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what data her Department holds on the number of Ofsted reports that were amended under the (a) internal and (b) external review process.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
This is a matter for His Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Sir Martyn Oliver. I have asked him to write to my hon. Friend, the Member for Shipley, directly and a copy of his reply will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Asked by: Philip Davies (Conservative - Shipley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether (a) her Department and (b) Ofsted has set targets for further education colleges on the number and proportion of students who should participate in relevant work placements during their course.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The department does not set targets for further education colleges on the number and proportion of students who should participate in relevant work placements during their course. Ofsted assess whether learners are given appropriate and high quality work-related or employment experience depending on the learners’ needs. This varies greatly from one learner to another depending on their experience and from one programme to another.
Asked by: Philip Davies (Conservative - Shipley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what data her Department holds on the number and proportion of students in further education colleges who have participated in work placements relevant to their course in each of the last three years.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
Data on experiences of the workplace is captured by the Careers and Enterprise Company and the latest findings are based on a national dataset of 4534 state-funded secondary schools and colleges which can be found at: https://www.careersandenterprise.co.uk/our-evidence/evidence-and-reports/insight-briefing-gatsby-benchmark-results-2022-2023/.
In the 2022/23 academic year, over 90% of further education colleges reported that most of their students had experience of a workplace by the time they finished their programme of study.
In post-16 education, pupils have access to work placement opportunities through the T level programme. T levels are designed to equip students for skilled employment, whilst also providing a high-quality route to further study, including apprenticeships, higher technical education and degree level study. The programme includes a T level industry placement where students spend a minimum of 315 hours (approximately 45 days) working with external employers. Since T levels were first introduced in 2020, 98.6% of the 2020 cohort and 94.9% of the 2021 cohort have completed their industry placement. This is a total of 4250 students who have successfully completed their industry placements.
Asked by: Philip Davies (Conservative - Shipley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many civil servants in her Department have a criminal conviction.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The department does not collect or hold information on the criminal convictions of its civil servants.
The department does require that, prior to commencing employment, individuals have cleared the Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS). This includes a check for live convictions and is the minimum level of clearance for all people working across the Civil Service. These checks are also carried out for existing civil servants moving into the department.
If checks highlight convictions, the department will consider the appointment if a conviction relates to any of the following: life sentences, arson, sexual offences, hate and terror offences, the department will also consider the specific offence against the nature of the business, i.e., a conviction for fraud may rule you out for a finance role (the department also undertakes an internal fraud database check, which identifies civil servants who have been dismissed for committing internal fraud, or who would have been dismissed had they not resigned).
The department is engaged in the ‘Civil Service Prison Leavers’ scheme but has not yet made any appointments. This scheme ensures that if an individual is a prison leaver, then having a criminal conviction is not a barrier to joining the Civil Service. The department only asks about criminal convictions once a job offer has been made and excepted and the BPSS checks completed.
The department expects its civil servants to abide by the Civil Service Code of Conduct and the departmental standards of behaviour. Employees must inform their manager if they are arrested, are charged and released, refused bail, or convicted of any criminal offence. If they fail to do so, the department will take disciplinary action for non-disclosure.
Asked by: Philip Davies (Conservative - Shipley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the educational attainment of white working class boys.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
‘Working class’ is not a characteristic used by the department in monitoring pupil attainment. Disaggregated data at a national level for Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 4 is available for pupil characteristics by gender, disadvantage, free school meal eligibility, ethnicity, special educational need status and month of birth.
The latest Key Stage 2 data is available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/key-stage-2-attainment.
The latest Key Stage 4 data is available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/key-stage-4-performance.
The government has long-standing programmes designed to close the educational attainment gap and improve the education of all children and young people, whatever their background or circumstance.
Asked by: Philip Davies (Conservative - Shipley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 13 September 2023 to Question 197731 on Schools: Redundancy Pay, if she will take steps to ensure that all severance payments over £50,000 for school staff are approved by her Department or the Treasury.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The responsibilities for academy trusts on severance pay and exit packages are set out in the Academy Trust Handbook (ATH), which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/academy-trust-handbook. Where the academy trust is considering a staff severance payment, including a non-statutory/non-contractual element (also referred to as a special severance payment) of £50,000 or more, the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s (ESFA) prior approval must be obtained before making any offer to staff. The ESFA will refer such transactions to HM Treasury. Additionally, in accordance with HM Treasury’s Guidance on Public Sector Exit Payments, academy trusts must obtain prior ESFA approval before making a non-statutory/non-contractual staff severance payment where: an exit package, which includes a non-statutory/non-contractual severance payment, is at, or above, £100,000; and/or the employee earns over £150,000. The guidance is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/public-sector-exit-payments-guidance-on-special-severance-payments.
The ATH is also clear that staff severance payments should not be made where they could be seen as a reward for failure, such as gross misconduct or poor performance.
The responsibility for maintained schools’ severance and exit payments sits with the school and the Local Authority.
Asked by: Philip Davies (Conservative - Shipley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many paid severances have been made by (a) all schools and (b) academy trusts in each of the last five years; and what the total cost to the public purse for those severances was in each of the last five years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government requires a high level of accountability and transparency of academy trusts. Academy trusts’ status as companies, charities, and public sector bodies means they have a rigorous tri-partite framework and are held up to greater scrutiny.
Academy trusts’ responsibilities on severance payments are set out in the Academy Trust Handbook available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/academy-trust-handbook. Additional information is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/academies-severance-payments-form. Data on severance payments is provided in academy trusts’ accounts and at sector level in the Academies Consolidated Annual Report and Accounts, available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/academies-sector-annual-reports-and-accounts. In each report, severance payments are covered under the ‘Staff Costs’ section. Special severance payment (payments paid to employees outside statutory or contractual requirements) are listed under ‘Losses and Special Payments’. The latest sector data for the Consolidated Annual Report and Accounts year ending 31 August 2022 will be published in autumn 2023.
As the responsibility for maintained schools’ severance payments sits with the school and the local authority, the department does not collect the number of severances or amounts paid by Local Authority maintained schools.
Asked by: Philip Davies (Conservative - Shipley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of (a) board members and (b) employees of Ofsted have previous experience in the sector that they regulate.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The role of Ofsted’s chair and non-executive board is to determine strategic priorities, objectives and targets for Ofsted, and to provide challenge and support in relation to the inspectorate’s overall work and performance.
Board members are appointed by the Secretary of State and recruitment processes follow the public appointment guidelines. All board members have the appropriate strategic and corporate expertise to perform their roles effectively. That includes board members with experience of working in the sectors in which Ofsted operates, as well as other relevant experience, including of other regulators, other services and third sector organisations that support children and young people. Ofsted’s board membership is set out here: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted/about/our-governance.
Recruitment of Ofsted’s employees is a matter for Ofsted, as a separate government department. I have therefore asked His Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman, to write to the hon. Member for Shipley directly on this matter. A copy of her reply will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Asked by: Philip Davies (Conservative - Shipley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has made an assessment of the reasons for the difference in the number of men and women entering university.
Answered by Robert Halfon
A person’s access to university should not be determined by their personal characteristics, but by their ambition and ability. We want to provide a ladder of opportunity for everyone to get the education and skills they need for job security and prosperity and to support levelling up across the country, regardless of gender, ethnicity, or socio-economic background.
There are challenges related to gender representation in higher education (HE). Data shows that more than half (50.6%) of female pupils from state-funded schools in England entered HE by age 19 by 2020/21, compared to 38.4% of males. The gap in progression rates between males and females rose from 11.4 to 12.2 percentage points between 2019/20 and 2020/21.
We know that prior attainment is a key determinant of successful participation in HE, and that is why we have asked universities to take on a more direct role in driving up the standards in schools.
Our access and participation reforms announced in 2021 are playing a pivotal role in ensuring that students are supported to access and succeed on the right course for them. As part of this refresh of the system, the Office for Students (OfS) has asked more institutions to set targets for increasing the proportion of level 4 and 5 qualifications, and higher and degree apprenticeships that they offer, so that more students can access flexible and skills-related courses.
In March 2023, the OfS launched its Equality of Opportunity Risk Register (EORR). This will empower HE providers to deliver interventions for groups of students least likely to experience equal opportunity in HE settings by highlighting 12 key sector risks and the groups most likely to experience these, including gender. We welcome the EORR as a key marker for social justice which will help ensure that no student groups are left behind.
Asked by: Philip Davies (Conservative - Shipley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the civil service headcount for their Department was on (a) 15 November 2022 and (b) 1 February 2020.
Answered by Nick Gibb
As at 1 February 2020, the headcount of the Department was 7179.
As at 15 November 2022, the headcount of the Department was 8358.
This growth reflects a number of key areas, such as emergency response functions in response to COVID-19 and Ukraine, and policy and delivery teams supporting the Department’s skills, schools and families reform agenda. This includes ongoing growth of the academies sector. This also reflects specialist digital, data, and technology, and commercial roles, including replacing managed services where possible to deliver greater value for money.