Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of schools in Bristol have received carbon dioxide monitors.
Answered by Robin Walker
During the Autumn term, the department provided CO2 monitors to all state-funded education providers, including early years, schools and further education colleges, backed by £25 million in government funding.
We have now delivered on our public commitment with over 353,000 monitors delivered in the Autumn term. Feedback suggests that schools are finding the monitors helpful to manage ventilation and, in the majority of providers, existing ventilation measures are sufficient.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if his Department will review the resources provided to local authorities in order to meet the service standards set out in the Special Educational Needs Code of Practice.
Answered by Will Quince
The department announced on 16 December that high needs funding for children and young people with complex needs is increasing in financial year 2022-23 by £1 billion to over £9.1 billion.
This unprecedented increase of 13% comes on top of the £1.5 billion increase over the last 2 years and will continue to support local authorities and schools with the increasing costs they are facing. Every local authority will attract an increase of at least 12% per head of the 2 to 18-year-old population in financial year 2022-23, with some local authorities seeing increases of up to 16% compared to the previous year.
As well as substantial increases in high needs funding for all local authorities, we are also targeting extra support for those authorities in the most financial difficulty and reviewing the overall system of support for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
The SEND Review is considering all elements of the SEND system, and the outcome of that review will be published in the first quarter of 2022 as a green paper for full public consultation.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if the Government will offer additional support and resources to local authorities' early intervention teams within their education departments.
Answered by Will Quince
In the autumn Budget a package of £500 million for ‘Early Help’ was announced. This includes a £300 million package to transform ‘Start for Life’ services and create a network of family hubs in half of council areas in England and a £200 million uplift to the ‘Supporting Families’ programme.
The additional funding provided for ‘Supporting Families’ takes the total investment to £695 million over the next 3 years, around a 40% real-terms uplift in funding for the programme by financial year 2024-25.
The ‘Supporting Families’ key workers consider the whole family’s needs and work through a multi-agency approach which includes schools and education specialists.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent progress his Department has made on reviewing the Special Educational Needs Code of Practice.
Answered by Will Quince
The department is currently conducting a major review of the special educational needs and disability (SEND) system. In the first three months of 2022 we will launch a consultation on our proposals. We will need to consider the outcome of our consultation to determine whether any legislative changes are required in relation to any parts of the SEND system.
The SEND Code of Practice is statutory guidance about the exercise of SEND functions under Part 3 of the Children and Families Act 2014. We will therefore be consulting on updating the Code as part of delivering a reformed SEND system.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, in what ways (a) young people and (b) others in Bristol West constituency are able to engage with his Department on its Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy.
Answered by Robin Walker
My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, announced a range of measures at COP26 to put climate change and sustainability at the heart of education. These included a draft Sustainability and Climate Change strategy for the education and children’s services systems, a new National Education Nature Park and Climate Leaders Award.
From December 2021 to March 2022, working groups of sector representatives and a group of young people, reflecting a diverse range of voices, backgrounds, and experiences, will bring together feedback on the draft Sustainability and Climate Change strategy from those they represent.
The department has set up a youth panel to ensure we can listen to the views of young people as we further develop the strategy. Young representatives from larger organisations such as the Student Climate Commission, Teach the Future, the UK Sustainable Schools Network and the Green Skills Youth Council will share the views of the children and young people from their networks at the youth panel meetings. The department encourages all interested stakeholders to feed their views in via these organisations.
The department will work closely with the working groups and with delivery partners across government to refine and build on the strategy ahead of publication of a final version in April 2022. We will also continue to engage with a wide range of stakeholders through bi-lateral meetings and topic specific workshops.
The department will be launching an informal online survey early next year for interested stakeholders. We will publish the details of the survey in the new year and will make it available to schools and young people.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to his Department's Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy, how his Department selected the user groups chosen to feedback on that Strategy.
Answered by Robin Walker
My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, announced a range of measures at COP26 to put climate change and sustainability at the heart of education. These included a draft Sustainability and Climate Change strategy for the education and children’s services systems, a new National Education Nature Park and Climate Leaders Award.
From December 2021 to March 2022, user groups of sector representatives and a group of young people, reflecting a diverse range of voices, backgrounds, and experiences, will bring together feedback on the draft Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy from those they represent. Youth representation will also be included in the sector group.
The department will work closely with these groups and with delivery partners across government to refine and build on the strategy ahead of publication of a final version in April 2022.
In recruiting members to each user group, we have been mindful of the need to balance the range of voices with the need for focused and meaningful discussion. The department has used the advice and views of sector leaders and experts to help us select participants in each group, seeking to ensure each one represents a key organisation working in the field or group of recognised stakeholders. This will allow us to more effectively access a broad range of opinions in a short space of time. Organisations such as the Early Years Alliance, teaching unions, Association of Colleges, and UniversitiesUK are amongst the participants and we would encourage interested stakeholders to feed in their views via these representatives.
The department will also continue to engage with a wide range of stakeholders through bi-lateral meetings, topic specific workshops and an informal public survey.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he has plans to make non-local authority maintained schools accountable for providing support for children with Education and Health Care Plans additional to the support set out in those plans.
Answered by Will Quince
Local authorities are statutorily responsible for securing the provision specified in the education, health and care (EHC) plans they maintain, working with their relevant health partners. Where an EHC plan names a local authority maintained school, an academy, a non-maintained special school, a maintained nursery school, a general further education college or an independent special school or specialist post-16 institution on my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education's approved list, it is statutorily required to admit the child or young person. The local authority remains responsible for securing the provision and monitoring its effectiveness, for example through the annual review process.
An EHC plan must identify the special educational needs of the child or young person, with any relevant health and social care needs, must set long-term outcomes and must specify provision to deliver them. A child or young persons EHC plan should therefore identify all the additional special educational provision which they require over and above that ordinarily available in the school.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what additional support he has made available to local authorities following the increased age range eligible for support from 19 to 25 brought in under the Special Educational Needs Code of Practice.
Answered by Will Quince
When the high needs funding block of the dedicated schools grant (DSG) was created in financial year 2013-14, it included the extension to age 25. The expected additional cost to local authorities was considered by:
£272 million was added to the DSG in the financial year 2013-14, and £390 million in the financial year 2014-15, to take account of the extended age range to 25 covered by the DSG. The difference between the two years is mainly because some of the changes post-16 started in August 2013 rather than at the start of the financial year in April 2013.
These increases in the 2013-14 and 2014-15 financial years were consolidated into the funding baseline that informed the 2015 Spending Review settlement reached between the department and HM Treasury. Local authorities’ increased spending, including on 16-25-year-olds, was also considered in subsequent baselines used for allocations of high needs funding through the DSG, and for informing overall Spending Review settlements.
The autumn 2021 Spending Review delivers an additional £4.7 billion for the core schools' budget by financial year 2024-25. This settlement includes an additional £1.6 billion for schools and high needs in the financial year 2022-23, on top of the funding we announced in the summer of 2021, following the previous Spending Review. We will confirm in due course how this additional funding for the financial year 2022-23, and the two subsequent years, will be allocated for schools and high needs.
In 2017 the department produced guidance for local authorities about education, health and care (EHC) plans for 19 to 25-year-olds with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). This non-statutory guidance is primarily for local authorities. It aims to support them in making fair and consistent decisions about when they should maintain an EHC plan beyond the age of 19 or issue an EHC plan to a young person aged 19 or over, in line with their duties under the Children and Families Act 2014, and as described in the SEND Code of Practice.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support the Government provides for parents who wish to pursue complaints with academy schools about their provision of support for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities.
Answered by Will Quince
Local authorities must make disagreement resolution services available to parents and young people for matters relating to special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). These services can be used for disagreements between parents or young people and schools, including academies, about the SEND provision made for a child or young person, whether they have education, health and care plans or not. Further information about these services can be found on the local authority’s local offer website.
All academies must have a complaints procedure, which complies with Part 7 of the Education (Independent School Standards) Regulations 2014. If a complainant has completed the school’s complaints procedure, or if they feel they have been prevented from doing so, they can complain to the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA). The ESFA will consider whether an academy has followed the correct process in handling a complaint, but the ESFA cannot change an academy’s decision about a complaint. Further information on the ESFA’s remit in considering complaints more fully is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/complain-about-an-academy/complain-about-an-academy. Guidance on taking forward complaints about SEND support is available here: https://www.gov.uk/complain-about-school/sen-complaints.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the Government plans to replace Local Authority Monitoring and Brokerage Grant funding by increasing the money allocated to schools directly in the event that the grant funding is withdrawn.
Answered by Robin Walker
The department has consulted on plans for reforming how local authorities fund their school improvement functions and will publish a government response early in the new year. The department is continuing to deliver year on year, real term per pupil increases to school funding. We are investing a further £4.7 billion by financial year 2024-25 for the core schools budget in England, over and above the Spending Review 2019 settlement for schools in financial year 2022-23.