Asked by: Roger Godsiff (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, for what reason the Government has removed its target of increasing the number of early years teachers; and what assessment his Department has made of the effect of removing that target on the educational achievements of disadvantaged children.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The department has never had a target for recruiting early years teachers. The Early Years Initial Teacher Training Programme has always been a demand-led programme.
Asked by: Roger Godsiff (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 24 April 2018 to Question 135864 on Disabled Students' Allowances, what assessment his Department has made of of trends in the level of reliance of disabled students’ on assistive technology.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
Information on the use of assistive technology in higher education can be found in this 2017 report, commissioned by the then Higher Education Funding Council for England: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/rereports/year/2017/modelsofsupport/.
Asked by: Roger Godsiff (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the £200 self-contribution that disabled students in higher education must make to access funding for computer equipment, what assessment the Government has made of the effect of that charge on the ability of disabled students to (a) access essential equipment and (b) continue with their education.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
Since 2015 eligible students have been required to pay £200 towards the cost of computer equipment recommended for them, given that computer ownership is now widespread and therefore a mainstream cost for all students. In December 2014 the government published an Equality Analysis of the changes to Disabled Students’ Allowances (DSAs), in advance of the introduction of the £200 student contribution to computer costs from September 2015. The analysis is available to view here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/
attachment_data/file/392610/bis-14-1108-higher-education-disabled-students-allowances-equality-analysis-revised-16-12-2014.pdf.
The department has commissioned a research project to explore the impact of DSAs on eligible students, including the impact of recent reforms. The research findings will be responded to when they are available in spring 2018.
Asked by: Roger Godsiff (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the £200 self-contribution that disabled students in higher education must make to access funding for computer equipment, if the Government will make an assessment of the potential merits of the British Assistive Technology Association’s suggestion that the contribution is reviewed and students are able to have that charge added to their student loan.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
Eligible higher education students are able to access maintenance loans, which are paid as a contribution towards a student’s living costs at university. All students require access to a computer so this is now a mainstream cost to participate in higher education, and we believe it is reasonable for any student to fund the purchase of a standard computer for email and word processing purposes from their maintenance support. The cost of a standard computer has been calculated at around £200. Any disabled student recommended a higher-powered computer to run assistive software is funded for any costs in excess of £200. Students are not expected to fund any assistive software or the training to use it. We do not consider it is necessary to provide an additional £200 in the form of a loan, given that this is a cost all students are expected to fund as part of their maintenance.
Asked by: Roger Godsiff (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 16 March to Question 134845 on English Language: Refugees, how much funding the Government has allocated to accredited English language teaching for refugees in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The Department for Education funds English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) courses through the adult education budget. We do not collect data on learners that would allow us to identify them as refugees. We have previously published providers’ overall spending on ESOL, which includes funding for refugee learners. I refer the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green to the answer my right hon. Friend, the Minister for Apprentices and Skills gave on 12 March 2018 to 131906.
In addition, as part of the Home Office’s Vulnerable Person Resettlement Scheme (VPRS) and Vulnerable Children Resettlement Programme (VCRP), local authorities receive £8520 per person for the first year of resettlement (with the exception of Northern Ireland, where the tariff is £8000 per person) from which they are required to provide a range of support services, including access to English language support. Local authorities are able to determine for themselves how this tariff funding is used, based on local need and service provision.
The government has also made an additional £10 million available over five years for English language support for those resettled on the VPRS and VCRP programmes. This funding is for the provision of ESOL classes, and equates to £850 per adult resettled. The Home Office has also allocated funding (£600,000 in each of the financial years 2016/17, 2017/18 and 2018/19, and £500,000 in 2019/20) to enable local authorities to provide additional childcare to those on the VPRS and VCRS so that they can attend ESOL classes.
Asked by: Roger Godsiff (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 16 March to Question 134845 on English Language: Refugees, how much funding the Government has allocated to accredited English language teaching for refugees in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The Department for Education funds English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) courses through the adult education budget. We do not collect data on learners that would allow us to identify them as refugees. We have previously published providers’ overall spending on ESOL, which includes funding for refugee learners. I refer the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green to the answer my right hon. Friend, the Minister for Apprentices and Skills gave on 12 March 2018 to 131906.
In addition, as part of the Home Office’s Vulnerable Person Resettlement Scheme (VPRS) and Vulnerable Children Resettlement Programme (VCRP), local authorities receive £8520 per person for the first year of resettlement (with the exception of Northern Ireland, where the tariff is £8000 per person) from which they are required to provide a range of support services, including access to English language support. Local authorities are able to determine for themselves how this tariff funding is used, based on local need and service provision.
The government has also made an additional £10 million available over five years for English language support for those resettled on the VPRS and VCRP programmes. This funding is for the provision of ESOL classes, and equates to £850 per adult resettled. The Home Office has also allocated funding (£600,000 in each of the financial years 2016/17, 2017/18 and 2018/19, and £500,000 in 2019/20) to enable local authorities to provide additional childcare to those on the VPRS and VCRS so that they can attend ESOL classes.
Asked by: Roger Godsiff (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if the Government will expand the review into the educational outcomes of children in need of help or support to include the (a) employment, (b) housing and (c) health outcomes of that group of children.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
On 16 March 2018, the government published data and analysis as part of the Department for Education’s Children in Need Review. This included the finding that Children in Need have worse educational outcomes than their peers from the early years, make less progress throughout school, and are more likely than other children to become a young adult who is Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET) three years after completing Key Stage 4.
We have no plans to extend the scope of the review to consider long-term employment, housing or health outcomes. However we recognise that the factors affecting these children’s educational outcomes may also lead to other poorer outcomes which is why our data publication sets out our intention to understand the lifetime outcomes of Children in Need, including exploring the feasibility of matching the Department for Education’s Children in Need data with data from other government departments. Children’s social care and schools have a central role in supporting Children in Need, it is therefore important for us to focus the review on what we can do now whilst making progress to understand more about other outcomes over the longer-term.
Asked by: Roger Godsiff (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether payments for school efficiency advisers who are already employed as school business professionals will be made to the school that employs them; and whether such advisers will be paid to advise the school that already employs those advisers.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The majority of School Efficiency Advisers (SEAs) are practising school business professionals working in the sector. Payment for their deployments as SEAs will go directly to the school or academy trust that employs them.
These advisers will not be paid to advise the school or academy trust that already employs them, but will be deployed to advise other schools and trusts.
Asked by: Roger Godsiff (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 28 February 2018 to Question 128697, what data his Department collects on how many schools employ a school business professional; and what the (a) remit and (b) typical rate of pay is of those professionals.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The information the Department holds on staff whose role is defined as that of school business professional is shown in the attached table.
Asked by: Roger Godsiff (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 28 February to Question 128697, how many school efficiency advisers are already employed by schools as a school business professional; and how many of those advisers are self-employed.
Answered by Nick Gibb
During the pilot being operated in this academic year, the funding for payments for School Efficiency Advisers (SEAs) comes from within the Department’s existing budget and has been allocated by the Department for this purpose.
SEAs are helping to share effective practice by extending the expertise they have already shown in their existing employment across the sector.
All the SEAs recruited to date are Institute of School Business Leadership (ISBL) Fellows that have applied in response to ISBL advertising the opportunity to its Fellows. The criteria for selection are having skills in school financial management and passing an accreditation process, demonstrating their ability to provide tailored advice to schools. The Department is still in the process of SEA recruitment and continue to receive expressions of interest for the role in the pilot phase.
The Department is currently carrying out the accreditation panels for the potential SEAs in the pilot phase. Of those who have been accredited as SEAs so far, 19 per cent are currently self-employed; and 81 per cent are employed as a school business professional.