Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much her Department spent on advertising for teacher recruitment in each of the last five years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The below table sets out total Departmental spend for teacher recruitment advertising campaigns for the past five financial years.
| Get Into Teaching Advertising: Financial Year Spend |
2022/23 | £13,157,484.38 |
2021/22 | £12,255,612.85 |
2020/21 | £11,848,725.34 |
2019/20 | £12,776,070.54 |
2018/19 | £12,773,706.55 |
The objectives of the teaching advertising campaign are to raise the status of teaching and contribute to overall Initial Teacher Training (ITT) numbers. Due to the long candidate journey from initial consideration through to applying for, and starting ITT, several methods are used to assess campaign impact. They include regular brand tracking studies and other market research such as:
Key performance indicators for the teaching recruitment campaign are consideration of teaching as a career amongst the Department’s target audience and the number of new, unique sign-ups to the Get Into Teaching service. The campaign also measures the proportion of sign-ups attributed to the advertising campaign, through econometric modelling and the proportion of ITT applicants who have interacted with the Get Into Teaching service.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what sum her Department spent on the recruitment of teachers in each of the past five years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department funds a range of initiatives to support Initial Teacher Training (ITT) recruitment.
The Department has announced a financial incentives package worth up to £181 million for those starting initial ITT in the 2023/24 academic year. The Department is providing bursaries worth up to £27,000 and scholarships worth up to £29,000 to encourage trainees to apply to train in key secondary subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computing.
As well as bursaries and scholarships, the ITT financial incentives budget includes grant funding for salaried ITT courses.
The Department recently announced that the School Teachers’ Review Body’s recommendations for the 2023/24 pay award for teachers and head teachers have been accepted in full. This means that teachers and head teachers in maintained schools will receive a pay award of 6.5%. This is the highest pay award for teachers in over thirty years. The award also delivers the manifesto commitment of a minimum £30,000 starting salary for school teachers in all regions in England, with a pay award of up to 7.1% for new teachers outside London.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to respond to the report of the APPG on Youth Affairs entitled Empowering Youth for the Future of Work, published July 2023.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The department is aware of the APPG on Youth Affairs Report, Empowering Youth for the Future of Work. Much of the report covers important matters that match our aims and policies, such as ensuring education and training meet future skills needs, giving young people the opportunities to thrive, the value of work experience and careers advice, and the importance of apprenticeships.
The government is committed to creating a world-leading skills system that is employer-focused, high-quality and fit for the future. Departmental reforms are strengthening higher and further education to help more people get good jobs and upskill and retrain throughout their lives, and to improve national productivity and economic growth. The reforms are backed with an additional investment of £3.8 billion over the course of this Parliament to strengthen higher and further education.
The department has invested over £7 billion during the 2022/23 academic year, to ensure there was a place in education or training for every 16- to 18-year-old who wanted one.
The 2021 Spending Review made available an extra £1.6 billion in 2024/25 for 16-19 education compared with the 2021/22 financial year, which is the biggest increase in a decade.
In January 2023 the department announced a further £125 million funding available in 2023/24. In July further announcements were made of investments of £185 million in 2023/24 and £285 million in 2024/25 to help 16-19 providers address key priorities.
The department is investing over £90 million in the financial year 2023/24 to help young people and adults to get high-quality careers provision. The department is supporting schools and colleges, through the Careers & Enterprise Company, to make sustained progress in developing their careers programmes, in line with the Gatsby Benchmarks, which set out what good careers advice looks like. The department has strengthened legislation to ensure all secondary pupils have access to independent careers guidance and at least six encounters with providers of technical education or apprenticeships. Currently about two thirds (65%) of year 13 students have experiences of the workplace.
The department wants to support more young people to start and achieve apprenticeships that offer good earnings potential and career progression and funding for apprenticeships will be £2.7 billion by 2024/25. The department is also paying employers and providers £1,000 when they take on apprentices aged 16 to 18 and covering 100 per cent of the training cost for smaller employers when they take on these younger apprentices.
T Levels will also equip more young people with the skills, knowledge and experience to access skilled employment or further study. They represent a real shift in the quality of technical education and the department has invested significantly to support providers in their implementation. From September 2023 18 T Levels will be available, being delivered through nearly 300 providers across all regions of the country.
In 2021/2022 the department engaged closely with the Education Select Committee on Youth Unemployment which covered similar matters to the APPG report, providing evidence and a government response, which can be found at https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/506/youth-unemployment-committee/publications/.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make it his policy to grant an exemption to siblings of UK nationals living in Europe and studying at UK universities prior to 1 January 2028 to allow them to qualify for (a) home fee status for university tuition and (b) student finance for courses starting after 1 January 2028.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The Education (Student Support) Regulations 2011 define a family member of a UK national as either the person's spouse or civil partner, direct descendants of the person, or the person's spouse or civil partner who are either under the age of 21, or dependants. There are no plans to amend this definition to include siblings.
UK nationals and their family members who were living in the European Economic Area (EEA) (excluding the UK and Gibraltar) or Switzerland on 31 December 2020, or who returned to live in the UK on or after 1 January 2018 following a period of ordinary residence in the EEA or Switzerland, continue to be eligible for home fee status, tuition fee loans and maintenance support for courses commencing before 1 January 2028. This measure was introduced so as to ensure a substantial transition period for those UK nationals who had moved to the EEA or Switzerland prior to the end of the transition period. The department has no plans to extend this period further.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, which consultations published by their Department are awaiting a response; and when each of those responses (a) were initially planned to and (b) will be published.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Policy teams across the Department consult regularly during the policy development and implementation cycle.
Information is available on GOV.UK on all open and closed consultations published by the Department, including the closing date for open consultations and, where available, the Government response.
The Cabinet Office has published best practice ‘consultation principles’ for government departments.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will publish the (a) number and (b) destinations of all domestic flights taken by officials in her Department in each of the last 5 years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department makes quarterly transparency publications which includes the number of domestic flights and destinations. These can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/dfe-business-expenses-and-hospitality-for-senior-officials.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made an estimate of the number of students in British universities who have opted to study abroad as a part of their degree in each of the last five years.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) collects and publishes statistics on higher education (HE) at UK Higher Education Providers (HEPs). Latest statistics refer to the 2021/22 academic year.
HESA has included a new table in their Open Data resources from this year, showing HE student enrolments by their location of study, which includes if the student was abroad for the whole or proportion of the year. This data item displays actual participation in a placement abroad rather than the students’ intent at the start of the course, and the information is available for individual HEPs.
The numbers of student enrolments studying abroad in the latest five years is provided in table 60, which can be found here:https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/students/table-60.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what was the total cost of orders of period products through the Period Products Scheme in (a) 2020, (b) 2021 and (c) 2022.
Answered by Nick Gibb
In January 2020, the Department launched a new scheme to make free period products available for state funded primary schools, secondary schools, and colleges in England. This scheme was extended in July 2022 for a further two years.
Since the scheme launched, 97% of secondary schools, 92% of post 16 colleges, and 68% of primary schools have signed up. This is an important step to ensure that period health does not present a barrier to education.
A full breakdown of the data for each year of the scheme to date is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/period-products-scheme-management-information.
The tables below provide a the number schools with multiple orders through the scheme, the number of schools who have ordered products through the scheme, and the total cost of orders through the scheme from 2020 to 2022.
Number of schools with multiple orders through the scheme | |
2020 | 2,499 |
2021 | 2,415 |
2022 | 2,303 |
Number of schools who have ordered period products through the scheme | |
2020 | 9,702 |
2021 | 10,213 |
2022 | 7,473 |
Total cost of orders through the scheme | |
2020 | £3,192,000 |
2021 | £3,915,000 |
2022 | £2,862,000 |
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many schools made multiple orders through the Period Products Scheme in (a) 2020, (b) 2021 and (c) 2022.
Answered by Nick Gibb
In January 2020, the Department launched a new scheme to make free period products available for state funded primary schools, secondary schools, and colleges in England. This scheme was extended in July 2022 for a further two years.
Since the scheme launched, 97% of secondary schools, 92% of post 16 colleges, and 68% of primary schools have signed up. This is an important step to ensure that period health does not present a barrier to education.
A full breakdown of the data for each year of the scheme to date is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/period-products-scheme-management-information.
The tables below provide a the number schools with multiple orders through the scheme, the number of schools who have ordered products through the scheme, and the total cost of orders through the scheme from 2020 to 2022.
Number of schools with multiple orders through the scheme | |
2020 | 2,499 |
2021 | 2,415 |
2022 | 2,303 |
Number of schools who have ordered period products through the scheme | |
2020 | 9,702 |
2021 | 10,213 |
2022 | 7,473 |
Total cost of orders through the scheme | |
2020 | £3,192,000 |
2021 | £3,915,000 |
2022 | £2,862,000 |
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many schools ordered period products through the Period Products Scheme in (a) 2020, (b) 2021 and (c) 2022.
Answered by Nick Gibb
In January 2020, the Department launched a new scheme to make free period products available for state funded primary schools, secondary schools, and colleges in England. This scheme was extended in July 2022 for a further two years.
Since the scheme launched, 97% of secondary schools, 92% of post 16 colleges, and 68% of primary schools have signed up. This is an important step to ensure that period health does not present a barrier to education.
A full breakdown of the data for each year of the scheme to date is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/period-products-scheme-management-information.
The tables below provide a the number schools with multiple orders through the scheme, the number of schools who have ordered products through the scheme, and the total cost of orders through the scheme from 2020 to 2022.
Number of schools with multiple orders through the scheme | |
2020 | 2,499 |
2021 | 2,415 |
2022 | 2,303 |
Number of schools who have ordered period products through the scheme | |
2020 | 9,702 |
2021 | 10,213 |
2022 | 7,473 |
Total cost of orders through the scheme | |
2020 | £3,192,000 |
2021 | £3,915,000 |
2022 | £2,862,000 |