Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many looked after children there were in each local authority in England in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The latest national information on the number of looked-after children in England can be found in table A1 of the statistical release ‘Children Looked After in England Including Adoption: 2017 to 2018’ at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2017-to-2018. These figures are also disaggregated at local authority level for the latest 5 years in the underlying data tables that accompany this statistical release. Figures for earlier years can be found in the underlying data that accompanies earlier statistical releases: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-looked-after-children.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many teaching assistants were employed in primary schools in each parliamentary constituency in Cumbria in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The table in Annex A, attached, provides information for the full-time equivalent (FTE) number and head count number of teaching assistants and teachers in service in state-funded nursery and primary schools in each parliamentary constituency within Cumbria from November 2011 to November 2017. These figures are publicly available in the underlying data files in each of the publications: ‘School Workforce in England’. This is available at the following web link: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-school-workforce.
Comparable figures for parliamentary constituency and phase are only available for teaching assistant numbers and teacher numbers from November 2010 when the annual ‘School Workforce Census’ was introduced. The previous source was the ‘Form616g’ survey which was available at local authority level only.
Figures for FTE teaching assistants in Cumbria local authority show a rise from 900 in 2011 to 1,300 in 2017. It should be noted, however, that these figures could be partly driven by an increase in the percentage of schools that have responded in each year. Totals for England are adjusted to provide an estimate in each year for non-responding schools. The trend is similar for England, showing a consistent rise from 136,900 in 2011 to 176,200 thousand in 2017.
Information on teaching assistants and teachers in service in state-funded nursery and primary schools in parliamentary constituencies in Cumbria and England is derived from the annual School Workforce Census. This is publicly available in the publications ‘School Workforce Census’.
Trends in the number of full-time equivalent teaching assistants and teachers in Cumbria local authority and England are shown in the table in Annex B, which is also attached.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many teachers were employed in primary schools in each parliamentary constituency in Cumbria in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The table in Annex A, attached, provides information for the full-time equivalent (FTE) number and head count number of teaching assistants and teachers in service in state-funded nursery and primary schools in each parliamentary constituency within Cumbria from November 2011 to November 2017. These figures are publicly available in the underlying data files in each of the publications: ‘School Workforce in England’. This is available at the following web link: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-school-workforce.
Comparable figures for parliamentary constituency and phase are only available for teaching assistant numbers and teacher numbers from November 2010 when the annual ‘School Workforce Census’ was introduced. The previous source was the ‘Form616g’ survey which was available at local authority level only.
Figures for FTE teaching assistants in Cumbria local authority show a rise from 900 in 2011 to 1,300 in 2017. It should be noted, however, that these figures could be partly driven by an increase in the percentage of schools that have responded in each year. Totals for England are adjusted to provide an estimate in each year for non-responding schools. The trend is similar for England, showing a consistent rise from 136,900 in 2011 to 176,200 thousand in 2017.
Information on teaching assistants and teachers in service in state-funded nursery and primary schools in parliamentary constituencies in Cumbria and England is derived from the annual School Workforce Census. This is publicly available in the publications ‘School Workforce Census’.
Trends in the number of full-time equivalent teaching assistants and teachers in Cumbria local authority and England are shown in the table in Annex B, which is also attached.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to protect nurseries from closure as a result of the introduction of 30 hours of free childcare.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
No nursery needs protecting from the introduction of 30 hours free childcare as providers don’t have to offer places if it doesn’t work with their business model. In fact, evidence from the evaluation of early delivery of 30 hours free childcare found that the majority of providers already delivering early years entitlements were willing and able to deliver 30 hours free childcare.
By 2019-20, we will be spending an extra £1 billion annually on higher funding rates to deliver 30 hours free childcare. The rates are based on our review of childcare costs, which was described as both thorough and wide-ranging by the National Audit Office. We continue to monitor the delivery costs of early education and have commissioned new research to provide us with robust and detailed cost data of under five-year-olds from a representative sample of early year’s providers.
The government continues to encourage providers to take advantage of the free packages of business support the department has invested in via Childcare Works and key sector organisations including National Day Nurseries Asssociation, Pre-School Learning Alliance and Professional Association for Childcare and Early Years. Support can be found at the following links: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/early-years-business-sustainability and www.childcareworks.co.uk.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many nurseries in each region of England have closed in each of the last 5 years.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
This is a matter for Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman. I have asked her to write to the hon. Member and a copy of her reply will be placed in the libraries of both Houses.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that people aged over 21 are encouraged and supported to access higher education.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
Studying later in life can bring enormous benefits for individuals, the economy and employers.
Many mature students choose to study part-time. The government introduced up-front fee loans for eligible part-time students in 2012/13 to meet the full costs of their tuition. We are further enhancing the student finance package for part-time students by introducing maintenance loans, equivalent to full-time, in 2018/19. We also intend to extend the part-time maintenance loan to eligible students studying distance learning courses in 2019/20, subject to the development of a robust control regime to manage the particular risks and challenges associated with this mode of study.
Evidence shows that accelerated courses appeal particularly to mature students who want to retrain and enter the workplace more quickly than a traditional course would permit. We legislated in the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 to allow a specific fee cap to be set for accelerated degrees, removing a key barrier to their wider availability. We recently completed a public consultation about the provision of accelerated degree courses, and will respond later this year.
In our first guidance to the Office for Students (OfS), which sets out our priorities for access and participation plans for 2019/20, we asked the OfS to encourage higher education providers to consider the recruitment and support of mature learners.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much money his Department has spent on bottled water in each year since 2010.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The department does not purchase bottled water for meetings or water cooler bottles. The water coolers use water which feeds directly from the mains supply.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much money his Department owed to Carillion plc in outstanding payments before that company's liquidation.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Our initial assessment is that the department does not have any significant outstanding payments.
We are working with the Official Receiver to reconcile the financial position. The department does expect this to take some time, since the liquidation process is complex, given the nature and size of Carillion’s interests.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many families are entitled to free school meals under the pre-universal infant free school meals system in Westmorland and Lonsdale constituency.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The proportion of pupils eligible for and claiming free school meals under the pre-universal free school meals system is published in the annual ‘Schools, pupils and their characteristics’ statistical release at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2017.
Data is not summarised by parliamentary constituency, but data for each school is available in the Underlying data: SFR28/2017 of the annual ‘Schools, pupils and their characteristics’ statistical release, contained in file ‘SFR28_2017_Schools_Pupils_UD’. The figures can be filtered by school phase, school type and parliamentary constituency.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many parents were (a) prosecuted for and (b) found guilty of truancy in each of the last two years.
Answered by Edward Timpson
Statistics on truancy for 2014 and 2015 (latest currently available) are published by the Ministry of Justice in the “Criminal justice statistics outcomes by offence data tool”, available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-justice-system-statistics-quarterly-december-2015.