Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of the recommendations of the Fourth Report of the Education Committee of Session 2015-16, Mental health and well-being of looked-after children, published on 28 April 2016.
Answered by Edward Timpson
The Government response to the Education Committee report into the Mental Health and Wellbeing of Looked-After Children is being jointly drafted by the Department of Health and the Department for Education. Ministers in both departments are assessing the recommendations in their entirety and the joint response, expected to be published after recess, reflects the importance that both departments place on joint working to meet the needs of this vulnerable group.
The Department of Health and the Department for Education have already established an Expert Working Group to consider how to improve the mental health and well-being of looked-after children, children adopted from care, care leavers and children leaving care under a special Guardianship Order or Child Arrangements Order. The Expert Working Group will include a focus on assessment and identification of mental health issues and difficulties.
The group, co-chaired by Professor Peter Fonagy, Freud Memorial Professor of Psychoanalysis, University College London, and Alison O’Sullivan, former president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, first met on 11 July 2016. Meeting notes, Terms of Reference and a work programme will shortly be available on the website of the Social Care Institute for Excellence (http://www.scie.org.uk/) which are co-ordinating the work of this group.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the press release of the Department for Education of 4 January 2016, entitled Parents to get greater say in the school admissions process, what assessment she has made of the potential effect that ensuring only local parents and councils can object to school admissions arrangements will have on overall levels of compliance with the School Admissions Code.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Our proposed changes are intended to ensure that the Adjudicator is able to focus on the concerns parents may have about the fairness of the admission arrangements of their local school, and is not held up by the need to consider objections referred by interest groups from outside the area.
We do not believe that limiting who is able to refer objections to the Adjudicator will have a detrimental impact.
Any changes will be subject to parliamentary scrutiny.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to increase the number of qualified early years teachers in nurseries.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The department delivers early years initial teacher training places through the National College for Teaching and Leadership. There are four training routes available: undergraduate, assessment only, graduate entry and graduate employment based. To encourage take up, the Department funds course fees, pays bursaries to eligible trainees on the graduate entry route and provides financial support to employers for those trainees on the graduate employment based route.
As part of our thinking on the early years workforce strategy we will be considering how best to continue to grow the graduate workforce, including supporting improved career progression.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the level of affordability of childcare.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The Government uses a range of information from a number of different sources to consider the affordability of childcare, including: our ‘Childcare and early years survey of parents’ (www.gov.uk/government/statistics/childcare-and-early-years-survey-of-parents-2012-to-2013), independent surveys, such as the Family and Childcare Trust Annual Childcare Cost Surveys (www.familyandchildcaretrust.org/childcare-cost-survey-2015), and the recent House of Lords Select Committee’s report on affordable childcare – to which we responded on 17 December 2015 (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/affordable-childcare-response-to-the-select-committee-report).
We are committed to supporting hard-working parents with the costs of childcare and to make it more affordable. That is why we will be investing an extra £1 billion per annum by 2019-20 to help hardworking families with the cost of childcare. Since 2008 nursery costs have been increasing well above inflation, but the latest survey from the Family and Childcare Trust suggests that the nursery costs of childcare in England for both under and over two-year-olds have remained largely flat across all settings in the last year.
We are already funding 15 hours a week of free early education for all three- and four-year-olds and for disadvantaged two-year-olds – this saves families around £2,500 per child per year. From September 2017, we will go further, delivering an additional 15 hours of free childcare for the working parents of three- and four-year olds (with early implementation in some areas from September 2016) – worth around another £2,500 per child per year. We also continue to invest in the Early Years Pupil Premium.
We are also introducing Tax-Free Childcare from early 2017, under which around 2 million families could benefit by up to £2,000 per child per year or £4,000 per child per year if a child is disabled.
For working parents on low and middle incomes, working tax credit pays up to 70% of their childcare costs and, as of April 2016, this has increased to 85% under Universal Credit. This support will be available, for the first time, to those working fewer than 16 hours per week.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she has taken to implement the provision of 15 additional hours of free childcare for working parents provided for under the Childcare Act 2016.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
At the 2015 Spending Review, the Government announced that we would provide £300 million for a significant uplift to the rate paid for the free childcare entitlements for two-, three- and four-year-olds from 2017-18. Together with the funding announced at last summer’s Budget, we will be investing over £1 billion more per year by 2019-20 to fund our commitments on the entitlements.
The Childcare Act, which provides the legal framework for the extended entitlement, received Royal Assent in March. We also announced in February the eight early implementer local authorities which will offer the extended free childcare entitlement from September 2016. This means around 5,000 children will be able to benefit from 30 hours of high-quality free childcare places a year earlier than planned.
The Department is also consulting on key elements of the operation and delivery of the extended free entitlement. This includes how the entitlement will be delivered, and how it will meet and be responsive to the needs of working parents. To date we have received over 1000 responses from a wide range of childcare providers, local authorities and provider organisations. We will use these views to inform our thinking as we move to delivering the 30 hours policy. The consultation is available at: https://consult.education.gov.uk/early-years-funding/childcare-free-entitlement
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many nursery places have been available in (a) Bolton, (b) Greater Manchester and (c) England in each year since 2010.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
I have asked Ofsted to respond using the data they hold on registered nursery places. Sir Michael Wilshaw, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector will write to the Hon. Lady, and a copy of his response will be placed in the House Library.
Some providers such as schools with nursery provision for children aged three or over are exempt from registration. The number of places therefore may not include the full range of early years provision available in the area.
The Department for Education’s Childcare and Early Years Providers Survey collects data on all registered childcare places, including those in maintained schools and nurseries. These figures are therefore more comprehensive than the Ofsted figures; however data is only available at a national and regional level.
The below link provides published data for 2010, 2011 and 2013 for England and the North West. The survey was not carried out in 2012 and so no figures are available for that year.
www.gov.uk/government/statistics/childcare-and-early-years-providers-survey-2013