Asked by: Scott Benton (Independent - Blackpool South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an estimate of the cost of providing education to people who crossed the English Channel in small boats and were found to be children in each of the last three years.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Shadow Minister (Equalities)
All children in the UK are entitled to access a school-based education in England, and this includes all refugee and asylum-seeker children. The department does not collect data on whether children attending schools in England crossed the English Channel in a small boat.
Asked by: Scott Benton (Independent - Blackpool South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what additional funding his Department has made available through (a) education investment areas and (b) education opportunity areas to support young people in Blackpool.
Answered by Jonathan Gullis
Blackpool benefited from over £10 million of funding through the Opportunity Areas programme between 2017 and July 2022. Blackpool will continue to benefit from continued support as a Priority Education Investment Area (PEIA).
In all 55 Education Investment Areas (EIAs), the Department will be taking steps to support underperforming schools to make necessary improvements, build trust capacity and improve digital connectivity. Over the next 3 years, up to £86 million in trust capacity funding and £150 million for extending the Connect the Classroom programme are being prioritised in EIAs, with all schools in Blackpool receiving the offer of Connect the Classroom funding. In EIAs, the Department is also offering the Levelling Up premium, worth up to £3,000 tax free, to eligible teachers.
In each of the 24 PEIAs, the Department will offer further investment in addition to the significant support available to all EIAs. PEIAs will receive a share of around £40 million of funding to address local needs, and priority access to a number of other programmes offered by the Department.
Asked by: Scott Benton (Independent - Blackpool South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what capital resources his Department has made available since December 2019 to support schools and colleges in Blackpool.
Answered by Jonathan Gullis
Blackpool local authority receives an annual School Condition Allocation (SCA) to spend on improving the condition of its maintained schools. The SCA funding allocated to Blackpool local authority since the financial year 2019/2020 is set out below. For the financial year 2020/21, the figure includes an extra £166,210 as part of an additional £560 million committed to schools in that year.
Financial year | SCA funding for Blackpool LA |
2019-2020 | £357,830 |
2020-2021 | £524,097 |
2021-2022 | £574,864 |
2022-2023 | £579,194 |
There have been three annual bidding rounds for the Condition Improvement Fund (CIF) since December 2019 and, over these rounds, CIF-eligible schools in Blackpool have received a total of £2.1 million in funding.
The Department also provides capital funding through the Basic Need grant to support local authorities meet their statutory duty to provide sufficient mainstream school places, based on their own forecast data. The total funding Blackpool has been allocated between 2019 and 2025 is just over £1.4 million.
Blackpool has also received just over £2.4 million in High Needs Provision Capital Allocations between 2021 and 2024 to create new places and improve existing provision for children and young with special educational needs and disabilities or who require alternative provision. It also received just under £850,000 between 2018 and 2021 through the Special Provision Capital Fund to help create new places for pupils with education, health, and care plans.
In addition, there has been a total of £5,304,205 in capital funding allocated to colleges in Blackpool since December 2019.
Capital funding secured through the free schools programme has also led to the opening of Lotus Special School in September 2020 and the completion of all works on the permanent site for the new Armfield Academy in February 2021.
Asked by: Scott Benton (Independent - Blackpool South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent discussions he has had with representatives of the school travel sector on options for the safe resumption of school visits during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department continues to work with representatives of the tour industry, devolved administrations, trade unions as well as other Government Departments.
The guidance for full school opening enables schools to resume educational day visits but continues to advise against UK overnight educational residential visits. This advice will remain under review and will be updated in line with guidance from Public Health England, the Cabinet Office and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. The guidance can be viewed at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/actions-for-schools-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak/guidance-for-full-opening-schools.