Asked by: Tom Hunt (Conservative - Ipswich)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to paragraph 5.64 of the Autumn Statement, whether Sir Michael Barber has been asked to provide an assessment of the adequacy of funding for further education colleges.
Answered by Robert Halfon
Sir Michael Barber has been appointed to provide private advice to my righ hon. Friends, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Education, on the implementation of the department’s current skills reforms programme. As part of those reforms, the department is investing £3.8 billion more in further education and skills over the Parliament, to ensure people can access high-quality education and training, including T Levels, that lead to good jobs.
Asked by: Tom Hunt (Conservative - Ipswich)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of further education college funding for (a) 16-19 provision, (b) adult education and (c) apprenticeships.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The department is investing a further £3.8 billion in further education and skills over this parliamentary session to ensure people across the country have access to the skills they need to build a fulfilling career in jobs the economy needs. Providers of post-16 education, including further education colleges, can benefit from the investment announced in the 2021 Spending Review, which made available an extra £1.6 billion for 16-19 education in the 2024/25 financial year, compared with 2021/22 - the biggest increase in 16-19 funding in a decade. This will help to fund the additional students anticipated in the system, 40 extra hours per student, and provide an affordable increase in funding rates per 16-19 student, including an up-front cash boost which will see the national rate of funding increase by over 8% in 2022/23, from £4,188 to £4,542 per student.
The department are continuing to invest in education and skills training for adults through the Adult Education Budget (AEB) at £1.34 billion in the 2022/23 academic year. The AEB fully funds or co-funds skills provision for eligible adults aged 19 and above from pre-entry to level 3, to help them gain the skills they need for work, an apprenticeship or further learning.
As part of the department’s £2.5 billion investment aimed at re-skilling and up-skilling opportunities for adults, we have introduced the Free Courses for Jobs offer and Skills Bootcamps. The Free Courses for Jobs offer enables learners without a level 3 qualification (or learners with any qualification level but earning below the National Living Wage) to gain a qualification for free. Skills Bootcamps are free, flexible courses of up to 16 weeks, giving people the opportunity to build up sector-specific skills and fast-track to an interview with an employer.
The department is committed to supporting more employers in using apprenticeships to develop the skilled workforces they need, and to supporting more people to benefit from the high-quality training that apprenticeships offer. To support more employers and learners to access apprenticeships we are increasing funding for apprenticeships in England to £2.7 billion by the 2024/25 financial year.
The department is also investing £2.8 billion of capital funding for skills over the Spending Review period, including to improve the condition of further education estates, create more post-16 places and support the rollout of T Levels.
Asked by: Tom Hunt (Conservative - Ipswich)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of places in special schools for children with SEND in Ipswich constituency.
Answered by Will Quince
Local authorities must ensure there are sufficient good school places for all pupils, including those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). The Children and Families Act 2014, requires local authorities to keep the provision for children and young people with SEND under review, including its sufficiency, working with parents, young people, and providers.
There are currently six special schools within Ipswich, providing 368 places to children up to the age of 16 with SEND, including social, emotional, and mental health needs and specific learning difficulties. Two of the six schools, The Bridge School and Sir Bobby Robson School, are yet to be inspected by Ofsted. Two schools, Thomas Wolsey Ormiston Academy and Stone Lodge Academy, are rated Good. The other two schools, West Lodge School and New Skill Centre, are rated Requires Improvement.
The department continues to support Suffolk local authority and academy trusts with special schools in Ipswich in a range of ways, to help their efforts with providing sufficient good special school places for children with SEND in Ipswich.
Asked by: Tom Hunt (Conservative - Ipswich)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many pupils in Ipswich constituency are waiting for special school places.
Answered by Will Quince
The department does not collect data on how many children are waiting for school places on a constituency basis. However, each January, the department collects data from local authorities, covering the number of children and young people and the type of provision attended. This includes mainstream schools, special schools, alternative provision, pupils educated elsewhere, and those awaiting provision.
The most recent return shows that in January 2022, there were 1,503 children of compulsory school age across England with education, health and care (EHC) plans who were not in education and awaiting provision. This is up from 1,460 in January 2021. In Suffolk, in January 2022, there were 36 children of compulsory school age with EHC plans not in education and awaiting provision, up from 26 in January 2021.
The department does not collect data about the specific circumstances of the children awaiting provision. The department knows that this category includes children and young people in a wide range of circumstances, including some who are in an education setting, but awaiting provision in another setting (including those currently attending a mainstream school who are to move to a special school), and some who have only recently moved into the area. The local authority keeps its special school place provision under continual review and has detailed plans for increasing the number of good places available in Ipswich and across Suffolk.
To support these plans, the department collaborates with Suffolk local authority on helping all schools in the county to continually improve their whole-school special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) approach, including ensuring that academies fulfil their obligations to pupils with SEND. While statutory responsibility for providing SEND places rests with Suffolk local authority, the department actively supports the local authority to secure sufficient, good quality SEND places in Suffolk, including in Ipswich.
Asked by: Tom Hunt (Conservative - Ipswich)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of provision for specialist education settings in Ipswich.
Answered by Will Quince
There are currently six special schools within Ipswich providing 368 places to children (up to age 16) with special educational needs, including social, emotional and mental health needs and specific learning difficulties. More information on the special schools can be found here: https://www.get-information-schools.service.gov.uk/Establishments/Search?tok=8UB4PirD.
Two of the six schools (The Bridge School and Sir Bobby Robson School) are yet to be inspected by Ofsted. Two schools (Thomas Wolsey Ormiston Academy and Stone Lodge Academy) are rated good. The other two schools (West Lodge School and New Skill Centre) are rated requires improvement (to be good). Further queries regarding the adequacy of specialist educational settings should be directed to Ofsted.
Asked by: Tom Hunt (Conservative - Ipswich)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much SEND pupils receive per pupil in Ipswich constituency under the area cost adjustment to the basic entitlement factor; and how that figure compares to the UK average.
Answered by Will Quince
Suffolk County Council, in which Ipswich is located, will attract a year-on-year increase in its high needs allocation of 12.5% per head of their 2-18 population this financial year, bringing its total high needs funding allocation in 2022-23 to £96.1 million.
Suffolk County Council’s allocation of high needs funding is calculated through a national funding formula (NFF) that includes an element of funding based on the number of pupils in special schools in the county, which contributes to the cost of the place funding for those schools. This basic entitlement factor allocates a per-pupil amount of £4,660, to which an area cost adjustment is added, that reflects higher staffing costs in some areas of the country, such as London. The area cost adjustment weightings and basic entitlement per-pupil amounts for each local authority in England are set out in the published NFF calculations which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-funding-formula-tables-for-schools-and-high-needs-2022-to-2023. The Impact of the schools NFF, 2022 to 2023 spreadsheet shows how the financial year 2022/23 NFF allocations have been calculated. This shows that Suffolk’s area cost adjustment is 1.000. How area cost adjustment is calculated is set out here in Annex A: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-funding-formula-tables-for-schools-and-high-needs-2022-to-2023.
A significant proportion of overall funding for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) is delivered through the schools NFF and subsequently through each local authority’s local schools funding formula. The information collected from local authorities or schools does not allow us to make a comparative assessment of total SEND or high needs funding on an overall per-pupil basis, at local authority or constituency level, or taking into account the severity of pupils’ needs.
Asked by: Tom Hunt (Conservative - Ipswich)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make a comparative assessment of the higher needs funding per pupil (a) in Ipswich and (b) across England on average for pupils with (i) mild to severe and (ii) severe needs.
Answered by Will Quince
Suffolk County Council, in which Ipswich is located, will attract a year-on-year increase in its high needs allocation of 12.5% per head of their 2-18 population this financial year, bringing its total high needs funding allocation in 2022-23 to £96.1 million.
Suffolk County Council’s allocation of high needs funding is calculated through a national funding formula (NFF) that includes an element of funding based on the number of pupils in special schools in the county, which contributes to the cost of the place funding for those schools. This basic entitlement factor allocates a per-pupil amount of £4,660, to which an area cost adjustment is added, that reflects higher staffing costs in some areas of the country, such as London. The area cost adjustment weightings and basic entitlement per-pupil amounts for each local authority in England are set out in the published NFF calculations which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-funding-formula-tables-for-schools-and-high-needs-2022-to-2023. The Impact of the schools NFF, 2022 to 2023 spreadsheet shows how the financial year 2022/23 NFF allocations have been calculated. This shows that Suffolk’s area cost adjustment is 1.000. How area cost adjustment is calculated is set out here in Annex A: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-funding-formula-tables-for-schools-and-high-needs-2022-to-2023.
A significant proportion of overall funding for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) is delivered through the schools NFF and subsequently through each local authority’s local schools funding formula. The information collected from local authorities or schools does not allow us to make a comparative assessment of total SEND or high needs funding on an overall per-pupil basis, at local authority or constituency level, or taking into account the severity of pupils’ needs.
Asked by: Tom Hunt (Conservative - Ipswich)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what was the average funding per pupil in mainstream schools in (a) Ipswich and (b) England in each of the last three years.
Answered by Robin Walker
This 2022/23 financial year, schools in the Ipswich constituency area are attracting an average of £5,089 per pupil through the schools national funding formula (NFF). This compares to a national average of £5,358 per pupil through the NFF.
In the Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2021, a further national increase in the core schools budget of £1.6 billion in the 2022/23 financial year was announced. This has been allocated to schools through the schools supplementary grant (SSG). Schools in the constituency attracted an additional £149 per pupil on average in the 2022/23 financial year through the SSG, compared to a national average of £156. This is additional to the NFF figures set out above.
In the 2021/22 financial year, schools in the Ipswich constituency area attracted an average of £4,944 per pupil through the NFF. The national average in 2021/22 was £5,212.
In the 2020/21 financial year, schools attracted an average of £4,575 per pupil through the NFF, when the national average was £4,828 per pupil. These figures do not include the funding for the teachers’ pay grant and teachers’ pension employer contribution grant, which were allocated as separate grants in 2020/21. This funding was rolled into the NFF from 2021/22. Therefore, the 2021/22 and 2022/23 NFF figures cannot be directly compared to the 2020/21 figures.
The constituency of Ipswich sees lower levels of funding per pupil than the national average. This is primarily due to the national average including schools in more expensive areas, such as London, that attract higher funding per pupil to reflect the higher costs they face. Schools in Ipswich also have a higher than average number of pupils per school. This means that they receive less than the average, per pupil, in respect of the school-led elements of the NFF that are provided at a fixed rate, such as the lump sum that each school is allocated.
The above figures relate to the amount of funding allocated through the schools NFF. The actual amount of funding schools received may be different, as it is determined by the Suffolk local authority’s local funding formula for schools.
On top of this funding, pupil premium funding rates are increasing by 2.7% in the 2022/23 financial year, meaning that the per pupil funding rate will be the highest, in cash terms, since its introduction. For Ipswich, total pupil premium funding will increase to over £5.7 million in the 2022/23 financial year, from £5.3 million this year. This will ensure that this targeted investment continues to support the most disadvantaged children in our schools.
In the 2022/23 financial year, the department will be allocating approximately £2,000 per pupil, for all pupils who have been eligible for free school meals at any point in the last six years (FSM6), through the NFF, the pupil premium and a 2022/23 school supplementary grant together.
The department has also committed almost £5 billion for an ambitious, multi-year education recovery plan to support young people to catch up on missed learning and invest in what we know works: teacher training, evidence-based support, including tutoring and extra education opportunities. This includes the time-limited recovery premium grant providing over £300 million of additional funding for state-funded schools in the 2021/22 academic year and £1 billion across the 2022/23 and 2023/24 academic years.
Ipswich has been selected at a Priority Education Investment Area (EIA). As a result, the department will offer intensive investment, in addition to the significant support available to all EIAs, so that we can drive improvement further and faster.
In all 55 EIAs, the department will be taking steps to support underperforming schools to make the necessary improvements, build trust capacity, support improved digital connectivity in the schools that need this most and offer the levelling up premium, worth up to £3,000 tax free, to eligible teachers. Our additional support to Priority EIAs includes a share of around £40 million of funding to address local needs, such as those acting as a barrier to improvement at primary and priority access to a number of other department programmes.