Asked by: Tom Brake (Liberal Democrat - Carshalton and Wallington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the total cost to the public purse for his Department’s work preparing for the UK to leave the EU has been since 23 June 2016.
Answered by Anne Milton
Her Majesty’s Treasury has allocated over £2 billion of additional funding to all government departments and the devolved administrations for EU exit preparations so far.
Of which, over £1.5 billon of funding is for 2018/19. A full breakdown for this can be found in the Chief Secretary’s Written Ministerial Statement, HCWS540, laid on the 13 March (https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2018-03-13/HCWS540/).
Asked by: Tom Brake (Liberal Democrat - Carshalton and Wallington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the cost to his Department of leaving the EU in accordance with (a) the proposals set out in the Government’s White Paper and (b) a no-deal scenario.
Answered by Anne Milton
At Autumn Budget 2017, my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer set aside £1.5 billion of additional funding for EU exit preparations in 2019/20. Departments will be invited to bid for 2019/20 EU exit preparation funding later in the year. Details of timings and process will be announced in due course.
Asked by: Tom Brake (Liberal Democrat - Carshalton and Wallington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the Government plans to allow UK citizens currently residing in the EU to qualify for home-student tuition fees after the UK has left the EU.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
Generally, to be eligible for student support from Student Finance England, a student should be resident in England, have ‘settled’ status, on the first day of the first academic year of the course and must have been resident in the UK and Islands (Channel Islands and the Isle of Man) for the three years prior to that date. The three year residency period should not have been “wholly or mainly” for the purpose of receiving full time education. The requirements for home fee status where students are studying in England are broadly similar. There are some, limited exceptions to these general principles.
There are currently specific provisions in the rules that provide access to student support for persons who hold settled status in the UK and have left England to exercise a right of residence elsewhere in the Economic European Area (EEA) or Switzerland.
The rules on eligibility for student finance support for UK nationals who are currently residing in the EEA and Switzerland, and who commence courses in England after the UK has left the EU, are under consideration.
Asked by: Tom Brake (Liberal Democrat - Carshalton and Wallington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of officials in her Department took sick leave for reasons relating to stress in the last year; and what proportion of total sick leave in her Department that leave was.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The number of employees in the Department for Education from December 2016 to December 2017 who were absent due to stress was 102, this represented 2% of the total workforce. The proportion of sickness absence related to stress was 14% of the overall sickness absence for the department.
The total amount of sickness absence days in the Department for Education from December 2016 to December 2017 due to stress was 2652.
The estimated cost to the department from December 2016 to December 2017 for employees taking sickness absence, is estimated at £2,700,000.
Asked by: Tom Brake (Liberal Democrat - Carshalton and Wallington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many days' sick leave officials in her Department took for reasons relating to stress in the last year.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The number of employees in the Department for Education from December 2016 to December 2017 who were absent due to stress was 102, this represented 2% of the total workforce. The proportion of sickness absence related to stress was 14% of the overall sickness absence for the department.
The total amount of sickness absence days in the Department for Education from December 2016 to December 2017 due to stress was 2652.
The estimated cost to the department from December 2016 to December 2017 for employees taking sickness absence, is estimated at £2,700,000.
Asked by: Tom Brake (Liberal Democrat - Carshalton and Wallington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the cost was to her Department as a result of officials taking sick leave in the last year.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The number of employees in the Department for Education from December 2016 to December 2017 who were absent due to stress was 102, this represented 2% of the total workforce. The proportion of sickness absence related to stress was 14% of the overall sickness absence for the department.
The total amount of sickness absence days in the Department for Education from December 2016 to December 2017 due to stress was 2652.
The estimated cost to the department from December 2016 to December 2017 for employees taking sickness absence, is estimated at £2,700,000.
Asked by: Tom Brake (Liberal Democrat - Carshalton and Wallington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the (a) amount of time and (b) resources that her Department allocated to the production of impact assessments on the UK leaving the EU; and on what date work on those impact assessments started.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Impact assessments, typically related to specific new primary legislation before Parliament, are narrowly defined. For example, the government laid an impact assessment alongside the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, which can be found at GOV.UK.
Civil servants conduct any impact assessments related to legislation as business as usual. Our broader analysis continues.
Asked by: Tom Brake (Liberal Democrat - Carshalton and Wallington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, which EU legislation within her Department's responsibilities will (a) be incorporated into UK law through the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill and (b) require to be amended under powers in that Bill.
Answered by Anne Milton
The European Union (Withdrawal) Bill will convert European Union law into UK law as it applies in the UK at the moment of exit. This will ensure that, wherever possible, the same rules and laws will apply after exit from the EU as they did before.
The Government is still making a detailed assessment of what corrections will be required to make that law function appropriately.
The department is responsible for a number of policy areas falling within the scope of this process including recognition of professional qualifications, equalities and participation in some EU agencies.
Asked by: Tom Brake (Liberal Democrat - Carshalton and Wallington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when her Department expects its work on the website for advertising teacher vacancies to be completed.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department is committed to improving the market for advertising teacher vacancies, so that schools can advertise at reduced cost and teachers can use job-boards and be confident they are seeing a holistic view of opportunities available.
We have carried out extensive discovery work to obtain a deeper understanding of the problems and opportunities in this area, and will now take forward a range of measures to make it easier for schools to advertise vacancies. This includes the development and use of common standards to make it easier to share vacancy information between systems. Once they are implemented, we will be able to make a more informed decision about the value of a Department for Education - built vacancy website based on those standards. We expect this work to continue throughout 2017.
Asked by: Tom Brake (Liberal Democrat - Carshalton and Wallington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much financial support was given to higher education institutions by government directly or through the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) for widening participation; how much such support was allocated through higher education institutions access agreements for widening participation; and how much of that support was given by government directly or through HEFCE in each financial year from 2010-11 (a) in total and (b) to each such institution in England.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
Information on the amount of financial support provided to higher education institutions through the Higher Education Funding Council (HEFCE), both on a sector and institutional level, is available on the HEFCE website. It can be found in the ‘Student Opportunity Allocations’ spreadsheet on the ‘Funds for learning and teaching’ tab for respective years at http://www.hefce.ac.uk/funding/annallocns/.
Information is also available, at both sector and institutional level, on Access Agreement allocations provided to higher education institutions. This can be found via the Office for Fair Access (OFFA) website at https://www.offa.org.uk/publications/analysis-data-and-progress-reports/ in the ‘institutional expenditure and fee levels document’, ‘key statistics and analysis’ and ‘access agreement data tables’ spreadsheets.