Asked by: Tristram Hunt (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much her Department spent on (a) consultancy fees, (b) legal advice, (c) civil service staffing costs and (d) all other expenditure relating to the Education and Adoption Act 2016.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Officials from across the Department were involved in different ways and at different times on work for the Education and Adoption Act. It is therefore not possible to distinguish costs from the wider business of the Department. There was no external legal or consultancy expenditure.
Asked by: Tristram Hunt (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many jobs in (a) her Department and (b) each of her Department's non-departmental public bodies, executive agencies, non-ministerial departments, advisory bodies and other accountable statutory bodies (i) have been abolished in or relocated from East Cheshire Local Authority since 2010 and (ii) will be abolished in or relocated from East Cheshire Local Authority by 2020.
Answered by Nick Gibb
No jobs have been abolished or relocated from East Cheshire Local Authority since 2010.
Asked by: Tristram Hunt (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the adequacy of the distribution of teacher training places in the (a) North Staffordshire sub-region and (b) West Midlands region.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department for Education has changed the approach to initial teacher training (ITT) allocations for the 2016 to 2017 academic year. The National College for Teaching and Leadership are not allocating a specific number of places to individual organisations for postgraduate ITT courses due to start in the 2016 to 2017 academic year. Instead, eligible schools, school-centred initial teacher training providers (SCITTs) and higher education institutions (HEIs) will be able to recruit as many trainees as they feel they need (subject to a limited number of controls), until the overall system has recruited a sufficient number.
School Direct lead schools, SCITTs and universities across all regions have been given greater freedom for the 2016/17 academic year to manage their recruitment according to local need.
We are monitoring regional recruitment across all subjects, including the West Midlands region. However, as School Direct and SCITT partnerships cover large geographical areas, we are not monitoring recruitment at a sub-regional level.
To date, the only challenge in geographical distribution of ITT places has been found in the London region in recruitment to primary, which was recruiting slower than other regions. In this case we have allowed school led routes (i.e. School Direct (tuition fee) and SCITTs) in this region to continue to recruit to primary courses to ensure that enough trainees are recruited. For all other regions, recruitment is broadly the same as in 2015/16 with some areas showing an increase.
We are prepared to use reserve recruitment controls in other subjects, or for other regions, as required.
Asked by: Tristram Hunt (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Prime Minister's oral contribution of 2 March 2016, Official Report, column 943, what the evidential basis is for the statement that there are 36,500 fewer pupils in overcrowded schools than in 2010.
Answered by Edward Timpson
I refer the Honourable member to my response to question 29204 submitted to Parliament on Friday 4 March 2016. The answer shows that the total number of primary and secondary pupils in excess of capacity has reduced by 47,513 between 2010 and 2014.