Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to support transition out of education for young college leavers with complex special educational needs or disabilities; and what steps she plans to take to help improve collaboration between education, adult social care and health for those young people.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Shadow Minister (Equalities)
Well-planned transitions are key to setting children and young people up for success. On 2 March 2023, the department published the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan, in response to the SEND and AP Green Paper published in March last year. The Plan outlines the government’s mission for the SEND and AP system to fulfil children and young people’s potential, build parent’s trust, and provide financial sustainability.
The department has committed to developing good practice guidance to support consistent, timely and high-quality transitions for children and young people with SEND and in AP. This will ultimately look at transitions between all stages of education from early years and will focus initially on transitions into and out of post-16 settings, including transitions into employment and adult services.
We are working closely with colleagues from the Department of Health and Social Care as we develop this guidance, in order to improve collaboration between services and smooth transitions. This is also in line with the commitments set out in the Building the Right Support action plan.
The SEND Code of Practice is clear that all children and young people with SEND should be prepared for adulthood and supported with that transition. Further education providers must use their best endeavours to secure the special educational provision called for by the student’s special educational needs.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the commitments in the SEND and alternative provision improvement plan to review her Department's (a) definitions and (b) management of specialist further education and integrate specialist colleges within the wider further education sector, what steps she plans to take to deliver this commitment.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Shadow Minister (Equalities)
The further education (FE) sector plays a crucial role in delivering special educational needs provision through a range of courses.
On 2 March 2023, the department published the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan in response to the SEND and AP Green Paper.
As set out in the Improvement Plan, we propose to work with the sector to review the way the department defines and manages specialist FE and consider what changes, if any, are needed. The department aims to involve the FE sector in this process, ensuring any changes needed are carefully considered.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the seriousness of the barrier posed by childcare for people pursuing a career in scientific research.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Shadow Minister (Equalities)
The department knows that for families with younger children, childcare costs are often a significant part of their household expenditure, which is why we are committed to improving the cost, choice, and availability of childcare.
The department is removing one of the biggest barriers to parents working by vastly increasing the amount of free childcare that working families can access. Over £4.1 billion will be provided by 2027/28 to fund 30 hours of free childcare per week (38 weeks per year) for working parents with children aged nine months to three years in England. This new offer will empower parents, allowing them to progress their careers and support their families. The department will invest £204 million in 2023/24 to uplift the rates for existing entitlements, rising to £288 million in 2024/25, with further uplifts beyond this.
We believe all parents should have access to childcare before and after the school day to help them work. That is why we are also launching a new national wraparound childcare pilot scheme. A total of £289 million will be provided in start-up funding to enable schools and local areas to test flexible ways of providing childcare. This will include, for example, exploring models such as partnerships between schools and working with private providers on-site. The department expects that this means most schools will have built up the demand to be able to deliver their own before and after school provision (8am-6pm) by September 2026.
Our proposals in the Spring Statement represent the single biggest investment in childcare in England ever. By 2027/28, this Government expects to be spending in excess of £8 billion every year on free hours and early education, helping families with young children with their childcare costs.
Postgraduate stipends are not classified as income for tax purposes by HM Revenue and Customs, meaning that neither PhD students, nor their university, pay income tax or National Insurance Contributions on their stipend. Because the stipend is not income from work, PhD students are therefore not eligible for free childcare support.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has had discussions with Cabinet colleagues on extending the free 30 hours of childcare offer to include parents who are postgraduate students receiving PhD stipends.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Shadow Minister (Equalities)
In the Spring Budget 2023, the government announced a number of transformative reforms to childcare. This includes the expansion of the 30 hours free childcare offer, through which eligible, working parents in England will be able to access 30 hours of free childcare per week for 38 weeks per year from when their child is 9 months old to when they start school. This will be rolled out in phases:
To be eligible for this offer, as with the current 30 hours offer, parents will need to earn the equivalent of 16 hours a week of pay at national minimum or living wage and less than £100,000 adjusted net income per year.
The key objective of this measure is to support parental participation in the labour market, which is why this offer is conditional on work. Students who participate in paid work in addition to their studies and meet the income requirements will still be eligible.
There are no plans to extend the eligibility criteria at present. The department recognises the value of parents continuing in education and provides a range of support other than 30 hours for those in further or higher education.
The reforms announced build on the government’s current early education entitlements, which includes the universal 15 hour offer for all parents of 3 and 4-year-olds.
Students starting a postgraduate doctoral degree in 2022/23 are eligible to receive a postgraduate doctoral loan of up to £27,892. The loan is intended as a contribution to the cost of study, rather than to specifically cover tuition fees or livings costs.
Further information on the childcare offers available to parents can be found at: https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of people employed within her Department have recorded that they have a disability.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Data compiled of all paid employees (headcount of 8,160) as at March 2023 shows 75.9% of staff have completed their disability declaration. Of those who have declared, 12.9% are disabled, 80.8% non-disabled, and 6.3% have selected the ‘Prefer not to say’ option.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an estimate of the number of young carers there were in (a) Lewisham Deptford constituency, (b) London and (c) England and Wales in each of the last five years.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Shadow Minister (Equalities)
Information on the number of young carers is not currently held by the department. Data is now being collected via the Spring school census for the first time from all state-funded schools in England to identify whether a student undertakes caring responsibilities at home. This will increase young carers visibility in the school system and provide an annual data collection to help identify long-term trends.
Data is also collected relating to young carers via the Children in Need census. When a child is assessed as being in need of children’s social care services, social workers will record factors that are relevant to that episode of need, with ‘young carer’ as one of those possible factors. The recorded factors are published annually in the statistics release ‘Characteristics of children in need’ which can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/characteristics-of-children-in-need.
The following link contains data for 2017/18 to 2021/22 for Lewisham, Inner London, London and England (figures at parliamentary constituency level are not available) where ‘young carer’ was identified in episodes of need: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/d0e547fd-650c-4144-947e-08db08498a11. It should be noted that not all episodes have factors recorded, but this has improved over time. Nonetheless, there can be differences in the recording practices between local authorities, therefore this data should be treated with a degree of caution. In addition, not all young carers will be children in need so these figures represent an undercount on the true number of young carers.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 4 July 2022 to Question 26814 on Qualifications, how many of the independent assessors that were commissioned to evaluate qualifications that overlap with T-Levels are (a) employed and (b) formerly employed by (i) his Department or (ii) its agencies.
Answered by Andrea Jenkyns
The department appointed six independent experts, through a competitive procurement, to evaluate qualifications against the three overlap tests. The experts were selected based on relevant experience and expertise, such as qualification design, development, delivery, and assessment approaches.
We are unable to release any personal information on their prior employment history.