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1672378

	registered interest
	date	22/11/2023
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Special Educational Needs: Standards
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure equitable standards of SEND provision in (a) urban and (b) rural communities.
	tabling member constituency	West Lancashire
	tabling member printed	Ashley Dalton
	uin	3387
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 27/11/2023 answer text <p>In the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan, published in March 2023, the department set out plans to build a consistent national SEND and AP system which parents and carers can trust, easily navigate, and have confidence in, whether they live in an urban or rural area.</p><p>The foundation for the new nationally consistent SEND and AP system will be new evidenced-based National Standards for early and accurate identification of need, and timely access to support to meet those needs. The standards will include clarifying the types of support that should be ordinarily available in mainstream settings and who is responsible for securing the support.</p><p>This will help families, practitioners and providers understand what support every child or young person should be receiving from early years through to further education, no matter where they live or what their needs are. By the end of 2025 the department will publish a significant proportion of the National Standards.</p><p>New local SEND and AP partnerships will support this work by bringing together Education, Health and Care partners with local government to produce evidence-based Local Area Inclusion Plans setting out how to meet the needs of children and young people with SEND and in AP in the local area, in line with National Standards.</p><p>The department is testing and refining reforms through the £70 million Change Programme to collect evidence about what works for children and young people with SEND and their families at a local level. The department is working with 32 local authorities and their local areas in each of the nine regions. To form a <ins class="ministerial">Change Programme Partnership</ins><del class="ministerial">Child Protection Plan</del>, in the majority of cases, a lead local authority will work in partnership with up to three neighbouring local authorities which will ensure impact is spread across a range of local areas, with differing levels of performance and demographics.</p> answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed David Johnston question first answered 27/11/2023 17:55:06 question first ministerially corrected 26/03/2024 16:40:15 answering member 4761 label Biography information for David Johnston previous answer version 3062 answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed David Johnston answering member 4761 label Biography information for David Johnston
	tabling member	4981 label Biography information for Ashley Dalton

1639373

	registered interest
	date	22/05/2023
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Students: Loans
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of increasing student maintenance loans above the planned 2.8 per cent given the current level of inflation.
	tabling member constituency	West Lancashire
	tabling member printed	Ashley Dalton
	uin	186264
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 31/05/2023 answer text <p>Decisions on student support for higher education courses are taken on an annual basis and changes for the 2023/24 academic year were made through regulations laid in January 2023. The department has continued to increase maximum loans and grants for living and other costs on an annual basis, with a 2.3% increase for the 2022/23 academic year and a further 2.8% increase for 2023/24.</p><p>The government recognises the additional cost of living pressures that have arisen this year which have impacted students. On 11 January 2023 the department announced a one-off funding boost of £15 million to this year's student premium. There is now £276 million of student premium funding available this academic year to support disadvantaged students who need additional help. This extra funding will complement the help universities are providing through their own bursary, scholarship and hardship support schemes.</p><p>Furthermore, students who have been awarded a loan for living costs for the 2022/23 academic year that is lower than the maximum, and whose household income for the tax year 2022/23 has dropped by at least 15% compared to the income provided for their original assessment, have been able to apply for their entitlement to be reassessed.</p> answering member constituency Harlow answering member printed Robert Halfon question first answered 31/05/2023 15:14:21 answering member 3985 label Biography information for Robert Halfon
	tabling member	4981 label Biography information for Ashley Dalton

1672380

	registered interest
	date	22/11/2023
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Special Educational Needs: Rural Areas
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure there is adequate funding for the provision of SEND services in rural schools.
	tabling member constituency	West Lancashire
	tabling member printed	Ashley Dalton
	uin	3388
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 27/11/2023 answer text <p>Funding for specialist Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) services is allocated to local authorities through the high needs funding block of their Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG).</p><p>Local authorities are responsible for deciding how much of that funding to spend on appropriate local SEND services, to ensure there is effective support for the education of children and young people with SEND in all local schools, including rural schools.</p><p>Nationally, high needs funding is increasing to over £10.5 billion in the 2024/25 financial year, which is an increase of over 60% since the 2019/20 allocations. The department has already announced provisional 2024/25 high needs allocations for local authorities, and Lancashire County Council’s allocation is £203 million, which is over £10 million more than the Council will receive for 2023/24.</p> answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed David Johnston question first answered 27/11/2023 17:53:15 answering member 4761 label Biography information for David Johnston
	tabling member	4981 label Biography information for Ashley Dalton

1684566

	registered interest
	date	23/01/2024
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Pre-school education
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the potential impact of (a) the requirement for maintained nursery schools to have at least one teacher with qualified teacher status and (b) other Ofsted requirements on the levels of Government support required for maintained nursery schools.
	tabling member constituency	West Lancashire
	tabling member printed	Ashley Dalton
	uin	11227
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 30/01/2024 answer text <p>The government recognises that maintained nursery schools make a valuable contribution to improving the lives of some of our most disadvantaged children. They are high-quality providers: in August 2023, 62% of maintained nursery schools were judged to be outstanding by Ofsted and 35% were judged to be good. Like other early years providers, they are required to follow the early years foundation stage statutory framework.</p><p>As a result of being maintained schools, certain requirements are placed on maintained nursery schools, such as having to have at least one qualified teacher, a special educational needs coordinator and a head teacher. These are costs that other small early years providers do not face. In recognition of this, the government provides local authorities with supplementary funding for maintained nursery schools in their areas.</p><p>The department currently provides local authorities with around £70 million a year in supplementary funding for maintained nursery schools. For 2024/25, the department will increase this in line with the national average uplift to three and four year-old rates for the vast majority of local authorities. The department will also add additional funding for teachers’ pay and pensions into this supplementary funding.</p><p> </p><p> </p> answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed David Johnston question first answered 30/01/2024 15:51:24 answering member 4761 label Biography information for David Johnston
	tabling member	4981 label Biography information for Ashley Dalton