Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department has taken to help ensure that new school buildings are designed so as to enable students with (a) physical disabilities, (b) mental disabilities and (c) autism spectrum conditions to be included in the (i) curriculum and (ii) life of the school; and what steps her Department has taken to assist schools to adapt existing buildings.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department’s ambition is for all children and young people, no matter what their special educational needs and disabilities are, to receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life.
All school building projects that are delivered by the department must meet the requirements set out in the department’s school building specification. The department publishes a range of guidance specifically for the construction of special schools, which support the provision of inclusive learning environments including access, acoustics and specialist Special Educational Needs provision. These are available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/school-design-and-construction.
More generally, all new school buildings must meet the requirements of the Building Regulation’s Approved Document: M, which sets out the details on access to and use of buildings. This can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/access-to-and-use-of-buildings-approved-document-m.
The department does not publish specific guidance on how to adapt existing schools. Under the Equality Act 2010, schools must make reasonable adjustments to prevent pupils with special educational needs and disabilities being put at a substantial disadvantage. Additionally, under the Children and Families Act 2014, mainstream schools must use their best endeavours to make sure a child or young person who has special educational needs and disabilities, including those who are autistic, get the special educational provision they need.
To support the adaptation of existing buildings, the department has allocated over £1.5 billion of High Needs Provision Capital for the 2022/23 and 2023/24 financial years. This funding forms part of the department’s transformational investment of £2.6 billion in new high needs provision between 2022 and 2025. Local authorities can use this funding to deliver new places in mainstream and special schools, as well as other specialist settings, and to improve the suitability and accessibility of existing buildings.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment with Cabinet colleagues of the adequacy of the support provided by local authorities for care leavers.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Supporting care leavers to make a successful transition from care to independence is a priority for this government. Care leavers face barriers to securing and maintaining affordable housing, which is why the department committed to delivering the actions within ‘Mission 5’ of the Care Review implementation plan to increase the number of care leavers in safe, suitable accommodation and to reduce care leaver homelessness by 2027.
This commitment includes bringing forward legislation, when parliamentary time allows, for ‘Staying Put’ to support young people for longer and for ‘Staying Close’ to be a national entitlement, recognising that young people in the general population are leaving home at older ages. The department will also bring forward legislation, when parliamentary time allows, to remove the local connection requirement for care leavers seeking access to social housing at the next available opportunity.
The government is providing funding for the following programmes in the current spending review period (2022/2025) to support care leavers to find suitable accommodation. This includes:
Ofsted inspects the adequacy of the support provided by local authorities for care leavers. In January 2023, Ofsted introduced a new, separate judgement in the inspection framework for local authority children’s services, specifically assessing the experiences and progress of care leavers.
Alongside this, a care leaver Ministerial Board, co-chaired by the Secretaries of State for the Department for Education and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, brings together relevant Ministers from across government to consider what more can be done to improve outcomes for care leavers and to help to achieve the five care-leavers-related ‘Missions’ as set out in the government’s children’s social care strategy, ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’. This includes looking to increase the number of care leavers in safe, suitable accommodation and to reduce care leaver homelessness.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help support care leavers to find a home when they leave local authority care.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Supporting care leavers to make a successful transition from care to independence is a priority for this government. Care leavers face barriers to securing and maintaining affordable housing, which is why the department committed to delivering the actions within ‘Mission 5’ of the Care Review implementation plan to increase the number of care leavers in safe, suitable accommodation and to reduce care leaver homelessness by 2027.
This commitment includes bringing forward legislation, when parliamentary time allows, for ‘Staying Put’ to support young people for longer and for ‘Staying Close’ to be a national entitlement, recognising that young people in the general population are leaving home at older ages. The department will also bring forward legislation, when parliamentary time allows, to remove the local connection requirement for care leavers seeking access to social housing at the next available opportunity.
The government is providing funding for the following programmes in the current spending review period (2022/2025) to support care leavers to find suitable accommodation. This includes:
Ofsted inspects the adequacy of the support provided by local authorities for care leavers. In January 2023, Ofsted introduced a new, separate judgement in the inspection framework for local authority children’s services, specifically assessing the experiences and progress of care leavers.
Alongside this, a care leaver Ministerial Board, co-chaired by the Secretaries of State for the Department for Education and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, brings together relevant Ministers from across government to consider what more can be done to improve outcomes for care leavers and to help to achieve the five care-leavers-related ‘Missions’ as set out in the government’s children’s social care strategy, ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’. This includes looking to increase the number of care leavers in safe, suitable accommodation and to reduce care leaver homelessness.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how much funding her Department plans to allocate to the UK Year of Service programme for the next financial year.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
DCMS is providing £750,000 of funding in 2024/25 to co-fund the next cohort of the UK Year of Service alongside the National Citizen Service Trust, providing work placements for at least 100 young people who are furthest from the labour market, giving them a chance to be set on a positive path towards long-term employment, education or training.
The Government recognises the importance of providing young people with supportive, meaningful employment. DCMS will assess the effectiveness of the UK Year of Service to ensure a focus on what works for young people. Any future spending is a decision for future spending reviews.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many special school places are available in England as of 24 January 2024, broken down by local education authority.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The information requested is not held centrally. The department does not collect real-time data on the availability of school places.
The department has begun collecting annual data from local authorities on available capacity in special schools, Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) units and resourced provision, along with corresponding forecasts of demand for these places. This data will help the department to effectively support local authorities to fulfil their statutory duty to provide sufficient specialist places.
Local authorities are responsible for providing enough school places for children in their area.
The department supports local authorities to provide sufficient school places through capital funding, and the department has published over £1.5 billion of High Needs Provision Capital Allocations for the 2022/23 and 2023/24 financial years. This funding is allocated to local authorities to support them to deliver new places and improve existing provision for children and young people with SEND or who require Alternative Provision (AP). This funding forms part of the department’s transformational investment of £2.6 billion in new high needs provision between 2022 and 2025 and is on top of the department’s ongoing delivery of new special and AP free schools.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to improve access to mental health professionals across (a) primary school, (b) secondary school and (c) further education.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The mental health of children and young people is a priority for this government and schools play a vital role in this, particularly by providing calm, safe and supportive learning environments.
To expand access to early mental health support in and around schools and colleges, the department is continuing to roll out Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs). These teams include trained professionals who can deliver evidence-based interventions for mild-to-moderate mental health issues and liaise with external specialist services to get children and young people the right timely support and stay in education. As of April 2023, MHSTs covered 35% of pupils in schools and learners in further education in England. The department is extending coverage of MHSTs to an estimated 44% of pupils and learners by the end of this financial year and at least 50% by the end of March 2025.
The department is also continuing to offer primary schools, secondary schools and colleges a grant to train senior mental health leads who can put in place effective whole school approaches to mental health and wellbeing. This training covers how to ensure children and young people can get timely and appropriate support, including by working in partnership with and making effective referrals to local service providers and mental health professionals. 14,400 settings have claimed a grant up to 31 August 2023, including more than 7 in 10 state-funded secondary schools.
Schools and colleges are best placed to decide what pastoral support to put in place to meet the needs of their pupils. To support them in doing so, the department has commissioned a new targeted mental wellbeing toolkit, which launched just before Christmas. This practical guide and tool is designed to help schools and colleges identify and embed the most effective targeted support options for their setting, including how to access mental health professionals. It is available at: https://mentallyhealthyschools.org.uk/targeted-support/.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the impact of the privatisation of children's social care on the quality of service provision.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Children's homes provide care for some of the most vulnerable children and young people in the country. There are many different types of providers who operate in this sector, playing a vital role in providing homes for children in care. Ofsted has a crucial role to play in upholding children’s social care standards and making sure children are safe in care. They provide independent evaluations on the quality of support, safeguarding, and leadership in children’s social care to ensure all children in need receive the services they need. The proportion of children’s homes of all types judged outstanding or good was 79% as of 31 March 2023 (10% outstanding, 69% good), an increase from 2022, when the proportion was 77%.
Local authorities have a statutory duty set out in Section 22(3) of the Children’s Act 1989 to make sure that there is sufficient provision in their area to meet the needs of children in their care. Local authorities are sometimes paying too much for placements, and the department’s view is it is not right that council taxpayers are footing the bill. The department recognises the concerns particularly around large providers with complex, and sometimes opaque, ownership structures. There is an awareness that a provider exiting the market could have a significant impact on the care of children and young people living in their provision, and it is not a desirable position to be waiting for this to happen. The department is developing a financial oversight regime to bring greater transparency, for example on ownership, debt structures and profit making, and prevent sudden market exit across both independent fostering agencies and residential children’s homes.
Support is being provided to local authorities to meet their statutory duties through £259 million capital funding over this Parliament to maintain capacity and expand provision in both secure and open children’s homes. To support local authorities with forecasting of demand for and supply of children’s social care placements in their area, the department is also seeking to deliver national support with forecasting, procurement and market shaping to local authorities. Lastly, the department has committed to developing a core overarching set of Standards of Care for fostering, children’s homes and supported accommodation. This will help simplify the regulatory landscape, raise quality, and ensure there are consistent safeguards across different types of settings.
Asked by: Rachel Maclean (Conservative - Redditch)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what guidance her Department provides for education settings to help students experiencing (a) depression, (b) bad nerves and (c) anxiety.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The mental health of children and young people is an absolute priority for this government.
The department supports education settings through a range of guidance on mental health and wellbeing, including to support schools and colleges to establish a whole school/college approach to mental health, promoting positive wellbeing among students: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/promoting-children-and-young-peoples-emotional-health-and-wellbeing.
This guidance is supported by the opportunity for all state schools and colleges in England to access a senior mental health lead training grant by 2025, with over 14,400 settings having claimed a grant so far. The department is also continuing to roll-out Mental Health Support Teams (MHST) and extending coverage of MHST to an estimated 44% of pupils and learners by the end of this financial year, and at least 50% by the end of March 2025.
The department has also commissioned two new resources to help providers that have been published this year, a targeted pastoral support toolkit and a resource hub for mental health leads, which are intended to help colleges to identify the most appropriate and effective support at the early intervention stage.
School-specific resources include guidance on supporting pupils with medical conditions, including conditions relating to mental health, which is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/supporting-pupils-at-school-with-medical-conditions--3. Additionally, the department has published guidance on mental health problems manifesting themselves in behaviour, available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mental-health-and-behaviour-in-schools--2.
The department is supporting the mental health of higher education (HE) students through an approach focussed on three pillars: funding and resourcing vital services, spreading and implementing best practice, clear responsibilities for providers and protection for students.
The department has seen impressive progress with the target for all universities to join the University Mental Health Charter Programme by September 2024, with 96 members now signed up. Members follow a process of continuous improvement as they embed the principles which ensure that student wellbeing is supported in all aspects of university life.
The sector is active in developing best practice which supports HE student mental health and wellbeing. I have written to all HE providers to ensure they are implementing guidance produced by the sector and third sector charities, including around suicide prevention and actions to take following a death by suicide, and information sharing with trusted contact of students.
The Higher Education Statistics Agency collects data on the number of students declaring a disability, including mental health conditions: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/students/table-15.
From 2022/2023, students with multiple disabilities will disclose each of their disabilities instead of falling under a catch-all "multiple disabilities" category. Depression, bad nerves, schizophrenia, anxiety, and other mental health conditions will continue to be included under one mental health category.
The department also collects data on various aspects of children and young people’s wellbeing and mental health, presenting key sources from the department and other stakeholders through the annual State of the Nation report on Children and Young People’s Wellbeing: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/state-of-the-nation-2022-children-and-young-peoples-wellbeing.
Asked by: Rachel Maclean (Conservative - Redditch)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department collects data on students who self report (a) depression, (b) bad nerves and (c) anxiety.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The mental health of children and young people is an absolute priority for this government.
The department supports education settings through a range of guidance on mental health and wellbeing, including to support schools and colleges to establish a whole school/college approach to mental health, promoting positive wellbeing among students: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/promoting-children-and-young-peoples-emotional-health-and-wellbeing.
This guidance is supported by the opportunity for all state schools and colleges in England to access a senior mental health lead training grant by 2025, with over 14,400 settings having claimed a grant so far. The department is also continuing to roll-out Mental Health Support Teams (MHST) and extending coverage of MHST to an estimated 44% of pupils and learners by the end of this financial year, and at least 50% by the end of March 2025.
The department has also commissioned two new resources to help providers that have been published this year, a targeted pastoral support toolkit and a resource hub for mental health leads, which are intended to help colleges to identify the most appropriate and effective support at the early intervention stage.
School-specific resources include guidance on supporting pupils with medical conditions, including conditions relating to mental health, which is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/supporting-pupils-at-school-with-medical-conditions--3. Additionally, the department has published guidance on mental health problems manifesting themselves in behaviour, available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mental-health-and-behaviour-in-schools--2.
The department is supporting the mental health of higher education (HE) students through an approach focussed on three pillars: funding and resourcing vital services, spreading and implementing best practice, clear responsibilities for providers and protection for students.
The department has seen impressive progress with the target for all universities to join the University Mental Health Charter Programme by September 2024, with 96 members now signed up. Members follow a process of continuous improvement as they embed the principles which ensure that student wellbeing is supported in all aspects of university life.
The sector is active in developing best practice which supports HE student mental health and wellbeing. I have written to all HE providers to ensure they are implementing guidance produced by the sector and third sector charities, including around suicide prevention and actions to take following a death by suicide, and information sharing with trusted contact of students.
The Higher Education Statistics Agency collects data on the number of students declaring a disability, including mental health conditions: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/students/table-15.
From 2022/2023, students with multiple disabilities will disclose each of their disabilities instead of falling under a catch-all "multiple disabilities" category. Depression, bad nerves, schizophrenia, anxiety, and other mental health conditions will continue to be included under one mental health category.
The department also collects data on various aspects of children and young people’s wellbeing and mental health, presenting key sources from the department and other stakeholders through the annual State of the Nation report on Children and Young People’s Wellbeing: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/state-of-the-nation-2022-children-and-young-peoples-wellbeing.
Asked by: Dehenna Davison (Conservative - Bishop Auckland)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure there is an adequate provision of SEND places in schools.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department recognises the importance of accessing timely and effective support to improving the experiences of children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), and their families. Nationally, 17% of pupils are identified with some form of SEN, three quarters of whom receive SEN support from their mainstream school, funded from its own resources.
Local authorities must ensure that there are sufficient good school places for all pupils, including special schools and those with SEND. They are statutorily required to keep the services and provision for children and young people with SEND under review, including its sufficiency, working with parents, young people, and providers.
To support local authorities to meet this duty, in the SEND and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan, the department committed to investing £2.6 billion between 2022 and 2025 to fund new special and AP places and improve existing provision for children and young people with SEND, including announcing 41 new special free schools. This funding represents a significant, transformational investment in new high needs provision. As part of this investment, the department has published over £1.5 billion of High Needs Provision Capital Allocations for the 2022/23 and 2023/24 financial years. Of this, Durham has been allocated a total of £11.2 million. Local authorities can use their allocations to deliver new places in mainstream and special schools, as well as other specialist settings such as specialist post-16 institutions, and to improve the suitability and accessibility of existing buildings. This investment is on top of the department’s ongoing delivery of new special and AP free schools.
Through these reforms, the department wants to ensure that placements for children and young people with SEND are sufficient to meet need, allowing them to access the right support, in the right setting, at the right time.