Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the risks posed by laptops infected with the gamarue virus provided by his Department to the (a) privacy, (b) safeguarding and (c) security of children, young people and their families using those laptops; and what assessment he has made of the potential risk of the transmission of that virus to other devices and households.
Answered by Nick Gibb
To date, the Department has received reports of the presence of a software virus on 33 laptops out of 800,000 devices provided to schools. The virus was detected as part of the setup of the device by the schools before they were passed to pupils.
The first notification of an issue was on 7 January 2021, with further notifications in the 3 weeks after, up to the 22 January. The windows laptops affected were ones where the school had chosen to set up the device themselves, rather than accept a Department for Education build.
In all known cases, the virus was automatically detected and removed immediately by the included antivirus software during the installation process.
The Department have been in constant contact with suppliers and relevant parties to understand and resolve this issue, and firmly believe this is a contained incident which we are dealing with at pace.
All devices without a Department for Education build are provided by the supplier from the point of manufacture directly to the school. The Department are reliant upon schools accepting the responsibility to install and configure any new devices in line with advice and guidance provided by both the Department and the National Cyber Security Centre.
In no circumstances should there be an occurrence of any child receiving a device that has not been securely and properly set up. Once the device is issued to a pupil, the ongoing risks associated with privacy, safeguarding and security of those devices and its users is entirely based upon how the schools and Local Authorities manage them.
The Department takes online safety and security extremely seriously. Any schools that have concerns about devices should contact the support desk at: https://get-help-with-tech.education.gov.uk.
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether guidance issued by his Department during the first national covid-19 lockdown in March 2020 allowed children without access to the internet at home to attend school.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Guidance is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-maintaining-educational-provision/guidance-for-schools-colleges-and-local-authorities-on-maintaining-educational-provision. The overall definition of vulnerable children has been in place since March 2020. It includes children who are assessed as being in need under section 17 of the Children Act 1989, children who have an education, health and care plan, and children who have been identified by the education provider or local authority as otherwise vulnerable for any other reason. Since the outset, guidance has been clear that education providers and local authorities have had full flexibility to allow children to attend school based on their assessment of the child’s needs.
A number of examples of the factors that providers may wish to consider under this third category of vulnerability have been provided throughout the COVID-19 outbreak. This is not an exhaustive or definitive list and the guidance states that these categories are given as examples that providers might wish to factor in when identifying otherwise vulnerable children. Education providers should interpret this in light of the wide range of information they have available to them, such as the needs of the child and their family.
One specific example within this list includes the term “those who may have difficulty engaging with remote education at home (for example due to a lack of devices or quiet space to study)” which was first used in published guidance on 28 August 2020 to include reference to the fact that children having difficult engaging in remote education might be a factor that education providers may wish to consider when identifying children who may be vulnerable.
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how data on (a) covid-19 infection rates and (b) staff absence for covid-19 related reasons among staff in education settings is collected by his Department.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department receives COVID-19 infection data directly from the National COVID-19 Response Centre within the Department for Health and Social Care on a daily basis. In addition to this, the Department continually monitors a number of public sources of COVID-19 analysis, including, but not limited to, the Office for National Statistics COVID-19 Infection Survey, the Office for National Statistics Schools Infection Survey, the Real-time Assessment of Community Transmission study at Imperial College London, and the weekly national Influenza and COVID-19 Surveillance Reports published by Public Health England.
The Department also maintains a strong working relationship with SAGE, SPI-M, SPI-B and the Children’s Task and Finish Group on children, schools and transmission, which assist in informing the Department’s understanding of the spread of COVID-19 within the community and within key groups of interest.
Ofsted collects and publishesinformation from early years providers on confirmed cases of COVID-19 known to them among staff and children. The latest data was published on Monday 11 January and provides the number of notifications for weeks commencing 14 and 21 December.
The Office for Students collects, on behalf of the Department, information from higher education providers on confirmed cases of COVID-19 known to them among staff and students, as well as headcounts for each. From this information we estimate infection rates in the Higher Education sector.
The Department also asks the majority of schools and colleges to complete the daily education settings online form, wherein they are asked to provide the number of teachers including head teachers, teaching assistants and other staff attending the school onsite as well as the number of those absent due to COVID-19 reasons from onsite and remote teaching/working: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/how-to-complete-the-educational-setting-status-form.
Please note, the online form is not the primary source of data on infection, incidence and COVID-19 cases overall. Rather, this data is used so we can understand capacity issues at both regional and national level.
Further data on overall infection rates, incidence rates and number of COVID-19 cases is owned elsewhere in Government such as by Public Health England, and can be found within the following links:
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/?_ga=2.91108568.335840232.1603021384-1347302696.1578321854.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-flu-and-covid-19-surveillance-reports.
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what criteria he plans to use to determine when schools will re-open to all pupils as covid-19 restrictions are eased.
Answered by Nick Gibb
We know that receiving face to face education is best for children’s and young people’s mental health and for their educational achievement. Our hope is that with the efforts we are all making to contain COVID-19, children and young people across England will be back in the classroom, spending time with their friends and teachers, and getting back into the rhythms of the school year again soon.
We are keeping plans for the return to school and college under continuous review and will ensure that children and young people return to face-to-face education as soon as it is possible.
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of covid-19 infection rates among staff in schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department intends to publish school workforce attendance data on 19 January. This data will be included as part of the publication ‘Attendance in education and early years settings during the coronavirus (Covid 19) outbreak’ and will be available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/attendance-in-education-and-early-years-settings-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak.
As set out in the Children’s Task and Finish Group report, the Office for National Statistics COVID-19 Infection Survey data from 2 September to 16 October show no evidence of difference in the rates of teachers/education workers testing positive for COVID-19 compared to key workers and other professions. This is seen even when combining different categories of school staff in the analysis. The report is available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/948617/s0998-tfc-update-to-4-november-2020-paper-on-children-schools-transmission.pdf.
The Schools Infection Survey (SIS) confirms that, even with testing, there are low levels of infection in schools. As staff included in the SIS study are in school, these figures will reflect the levels of infection without clear symptoms in teachers only, as symptomatic individuals should not be attending. Whilst the SIS data may suggest a higher rate of infection among secondary school staff included in the survey than in primary schools, the estimates have wide and overlapping confidence intervals, and the difference is not statistically significant. More broadly, caution should be taken when interpreting the SIS findings: the SIS data is unweighted, and so cannot be generalised to the school population as a whole.
Analysis of the Department’s attendance data includes reports of those absent with confirmed COVID-19. The Department’s attendance data indicates that, whilst the percentage of students with confirmed infection is greater in secondary school than primary school students, the percentage of teachers with confirmed infection appears to be similar across primary and secondary schools.
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many 4G wireless routers he (a) has delivered since the start of the covid-19 outbreak and (b) plans to deliver, to schools in England.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government is investing over £400 million to support access to remote education and online social care services, including securing 1.3 million laptops and tablets for disadvantaged children and young people.
This includes over 700,000 laptops and tablets that were delivered to schools, trusts and local authorities by 11 January.
The Department has published the latest data on the number of laptops have been delivered as of 11 January by local authority area and academy trusts here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/laptops-tablets-and-4g-wireless-routers-progress-data.
Data on the number of laptops delivered by parliamentary constituency is not available. This is because most laptops have been delivered to academy trusts and local authorities, which are responsible for distributing them to schools, usually in multiple constituencies.
We have delivered over 54,000 4G wireless routers, to schools, academy trusts and local authorities. Data on the local authority and parliamentary constituency to which routers have been delivered is not available.
We have also partnered with the UK’s leading mobile operators to provide free data to help disadvantaged children get online as well as delivering 4G wireless routers for pupils without connection at home. For this we are grateful to EE, O2, Sky Mobile, Smarty, Tesco Mobile, Three, Virgin Mobile, and Vodafone. We continue to invite a range of mobile network providers to support the offer.
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many laptops his Department has delivered to schools in each (a) local authority area and (b) parliamentary constituency in England during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government is investing over £400 million to support access to remote education and online social care services, including securing 1.3 million laptops and tablets for disadvantaged children and young people.
This includes over 700,000 laptops and tablets that were delivered to schools, trusts and local authorities by 11 January.
The Department has published the latest data on the number of laptops have been delivered as of 11 January by local authority area and academy trusts here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/laptops-tablets-and-4g-wireless-routers-progress-data.
Data on the number of laptops delivered by parliamentary constituency is not available. This is because most laptops have been delivered to academy trusts and local authorities, which are responsible for distributing them to schools, usually in multiple constituencies.
We have delivered over 54,000 4G wireless routers, to schools, academy trusts and local authorities. Data on the local authority and parliamentary constituency to which routers have been delivered is not available.
We have also partnered with the UK’s leading mobile operators to provide free data to help disadvantaged children get online as well as delivering 4G wireless routers for pupils without connection at home. For this we are grateful to EE, O2, Sky Mobile, Smarty, Tesco Mobile, Three, Virgin Mobile, and Vodafone. We continue to invite a range of mobile network providers to support the offer.
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, for what reasons schools in the London Borough of Redbridge were not included in the covid-19 contingency framework implementation guidance, published on 30 December 2020.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Redbridge was inadvertently omitted from the list supplied to the Department for Education by the Department of Health and Social Care, but was added as soon as the mistake was identified.
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when he plans to provide guidance to schools and colleges on how covid-19 testing will be conducted within their settings; and for what reason that guidance was not issued before the end of school term.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department has provided schools and colleges with access to guidance and support for setting up the mass testing of staff, students and pupils. They can access the published guidance through the shared digital platform and request further advice using the DfE helpline. More information on the helpline is available at: https://www.gov.uk/contact-dfe.
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on the priority given to school staff for access to the covid-19 vaccine; and when he plans to give school staff access to the covid-19 vaccine.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) are the independent experts who advise the Government on which vaccine/s the UK should use and provide advice on who should be offered them.
JCVI advises that the first priorities for the COVID-19 vaccination programme should be the prevention of mortality and the maintenance of the health and social care systems. As the risk of mortality from COVID-19 increases with age, prioritisation is primarily based on age.
Regarding the next phase of vaccine rollout, JCVI have asked that the Department of Health and Social Care consider occupational vaccination in collaboration with other Government departments. The Department for Education will input into this cross governmental exercise.