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 Answer of 29 February 2016 to Question 28207, how many and which local authorities have notified her Department about plans to dispose of grant-funded assets through the (a) sale, (b) transfer and (c) change of use of children's centres.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The decision whether to dispose of grant funded assets is a local issue. We have a thorough process in place to consider whether the local authority should be subject to claw back as a result of the disposal of grant funded assets which was outlined in the response to Question 28207.
Asked by: Tristram Hunt (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that the supply of newly-qualified teachers is not affected by imbalances in the distribution of teacher training places at a sub-regional level.
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.
As School Direct and SCITT partnerships cover large geographical areas, we are monitoring recruitment at a regional level only. 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.
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 10 February 2016, Official Report, column 1576, what the evidential basis is for the statement that there are 47,500 fewer pupils in overcrowded schools than in 2010.
Answered by Edward Timpson
The department collects information from each local authority on the number of schools, the number of places in those schools and the number of pupils on roll through the annual school capacity survey (SCAP). The data is published annually, and the main tables contain national and local authority level data. The latest published data, relating to the position as reported by local authorities at May 2014, can be found on GOV.UK at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-capacity-academic-year-2013-to-2014
Previous years are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-school-capacity
In both the 2014 and 2010 data publications, the table below shows capacity in state funded primary and secondary schools. In 2010 there were a total of 97,230 primary and secondary pupils in excess of capacity. In 2014 this had reduced to 49,717, meaning that 47,513 fewer pupils were excess of capacity in 2014 than in 2010.
Number of pupils in excess of school capacity | ||
State-funded primary schools | 2010 | 41,680 |
State-funded secondary schools | 2010 | 55,550 |
State-funded primary schools | 2014 | 30,737 |
State-funded secondary schools | 2014 | 18,980 |
State-funded primary schools | Change 2010 to 2014 | 10,943 |
State-funded secondary schools | Change 2010 to 2014 | 36,570 |
Total | Change 2010 to 2014 | 47,513 |
Asked by: Tristram Hunt (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, which higher education institution providers of initial teacher education have reduced their allocation for PGCE secondary training in (a) history, (b) geography, (c) English and (d) STEM subjects in 2015-16; and what that reduction is as a proportion of that provider's 2014-15 allocations in each case.
Answered by Nick Gibb
For the 2014/15 and 2015/16 academic years, we operated an allocations system to distribute initial teacher training (ITT) places directly to School Direct lead schools, school-centred initial teacher training providers (SCITTs) and higher education institutions (HEIs). For recent years detailed initial and final allocations data for individual HEIs can be found on GOV.UK:
2015/16 GOV.UK links:
Initial allocations: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/initial-teacher-training-allocations-for-academic-year-2015-to-2016
Final allocations summary: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/initial-teacher-training-itt-recruitment-controls
Summary of final core postgraduate ITT places available to all HEIs in:
(a) history = 243;
(b) geography = 462;
(c) English = 866; and
(d) STEM* = 5081)
2014/15 GOV.UK links:
Summary of final core postgraduate places available to all HEIs in:
(a) history = 363;
(b) geography = 472;
(c) English = 867 and
(d) STEM* = 5086)
*STEM subjects include: Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Design & Technology and Computing.
Asked by: Tristram Hunt (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, on how many occasions a special adviser of her Department has accompanied a Minister on a foreign trip since 1 October 2015; and what the cost of that travel has been.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Special advisers have not accompanied any Ministers on an international visit since 1 October 2015.
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 supply of newly-qualified mathematics teachers in Stoke-on-Trent.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department for Education uses the Teacher Supply Model (TSM) to estimate the national requirements for the number of postgraduate Initial Teacher Training places to meet demand, including mathematics.
The 2016/17 version of the TSM, which was used to inform the 2016/17 ITT recruitment process, along with a user guide explaining the methodology in detail, is available at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/teacher-supply-model
Asked by: Tristram Hunt (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions (a) Ministers, (b) special advisers and (c) senior officials of her Department have had with representatives from the National Baccalaureate Trust since May 2015.
Answered by Nick Gibb
I am not aware of any discussions that have taken place with representatives from the National Baccalaureate Trust.
The Department recently consulted on the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) asking for views on how schools will manage the challenges associated with implementing the commitment that the EBacc becomes the default position for all mainstream secondary pupils. The consultation closed on 29 January and we received 2,755 responses.
Asked by: Tristram Hunt (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what official foreign visits she has undertaken since 1 October 2015; and what the cost to the public purse was of those visits.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Details of the Secretary of State’s international travel, including cost to the public purse, is published on a quarterly basis. International travel that has taken place since October 2015 will be published in due course.
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 has spent on (a) new IT equipment, (b) new furniture, (c) new artwork, (d) catering and events, (e) renovating its buildings and facilities, (f) new plants and shrubs and (g) special advisers' travel expenses since May 2015.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department for Education has spent the amounts shown in the table below on the following list of categories from 1 May 2015 to 31 January 2016.
a) New IT equipment | £868,312 |
b) New furniture | £11,861 |
c) New artwork | No Expenditure |
d) Catering and events | £326,575 |
e) Renovating buildings and facilities [1] | £9,862,679 |
f) New plants and shrubs | No Expenditure |
g) Special Advisers’ travel expenses (including rail journeys) | £1,555 |
[1] The figure for renovating buildings and facilities is for DfE and its Agencies and does not include expenditure on school buildings.
The figures are for the Department, its Agencies and Non-Departmental Public Bodies, Government Equalities Office, Equality and Human Rights Commission and Office of the Children’s Commissioner.