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1718813

registered interest
date	16/05/2024
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Nurseries: Leeds
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will have discussions with the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on making funding available to Leeds City Council to ensure the continuation of Little Owls nursery provision.
tabling member constituency	Leeds North East
tabling member printed	Fabian Hamilton
uin	26664
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 21/05/2024 answer text <p>The department funds local authorities to deliver the early years entitlements. Local authorities are then responsible for funding early years providers at a local level, setting individual provider funding rates in consultation with their providers and schools forum, and fund providers using their local funding formula.</p><p> </p><p>Local authorities receive their government funding via the early years block of the Dedicated Schools Grant. For 2024/25, Leeds local authority’s indicative allocation for delivering the early years entitlements is £96,966,731, which has increased from £63,075,651.</p><p> </p><p>The department maintain a regular dialogue with local authorities, who are responsible for ensuring that the provision of childcare is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents in their area. Leeds City Council has not informed the department of any current sufficiency issues in its area.</p> answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed David Johnston question first answered 21/05/2024 16:44:58 answering member 4761 label Biography information for David Johnston
tabling member	415 label Biography information for Fabian Hamilton

1718881

registered interest
date	16/05/2024
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Carers
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what progress her Department has made on the implementation of the National Kinship Care Strategy.
tabling member constituency	Mid Bedfordshire
tabling member printed	Alistair Strathern
uin	26804
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 21/05/2024 answer text <p>‘Championing Kinship Care’, which was published on 15 December 2023, sets out the department’s vision for a future kinship care system and how kinship carers can be better supported, so that more children can thrive. The department is investing £20 million of funding in 2024/25 to help move towards a children’s social care system with kinship at its heart.</p><p> </p><p>The department will launch a Pathfinder programme in 2024 in up to eight local authorities to provide special guardian kinship carers, who care for previously looked after children, with a financial allowance to be paid at the same rate as foster care. This programme will be backed by an investment of £16 million in 2024/25 and the department will explore expanding eligibility to broader cohorts of kinship carers and all local authorities in the future, subject to the findings of our evaluation. The department is currently working through the criteria for the eight local authorities, and will share further information on the Pathfinder in the coming months.</p><p> </p><p>The department also announced £3.8 million in 2024/25 to expand the role of Virtual School Heads to specifically include championing the education, attendance and attainment of children in kinship care. Local authority funding allocations were published in March 2024 and the role extension will come into effect from September 2024.</p><p> </p><p>The department is also delivering a package of training and support that all kinship carers across England can access if they wish to within this Spending Review period. The department is pleased to confirm the charity Kinship as the successful training partner and that the service went live in April 2024.</p> answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed David Johnston question first answered 21/05/2024 16:45:51 answering member 4761 label Biography information for David Johnston
tabling member	5000 label Biography information for Alistair Strathern

1718882

registered interest
date	16/05/2024
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Children: Social Services
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what progress her Department has made on the implementation of the financial allowance pathfinder.
tabling member constituency	Mid Bedfordshire
tabling member printed	Alistair Strathern
uin	26805
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 21/05/2024 answer text <p>The department will launch a Pathfinder programme in 2024 in up to eight local authorities to provide special guardian kinship carers, who care for previously looked after children, with a financial allowance to be paid at the same rate as foster care. This programme will be backed by an investment of £16 million in 2024/25 and the department will explore expanding eligibility to broader cohorts of kinship carers and all local authorities in the future, subject to the findings of our evaluation. Local authority selection will take place this year. The department will also work with an evaluation partner to make sure that the programme can provide robust evidence for future rollout. The department will share further information on the Pathfinder in the coming months.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed David Johnston question first answered 21/05/2024 16:46:40 answering member 4761 label Biography information for David Johnston
tabling member	5000 label Biography information for Alistair Strathern

1718883

registered interest
date	16/05/2024
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Children: Social Services
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when she plans to announce the eight local authorities selected for the financial allowance pathfinder.
tabling member constituency	Mid Bedfordshire
tabling member printed	Alistair Strathern
uin	26806
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 21/05/2024 answer text <p>The department will launch a Pathfinder programme in 2024 in up to eight local authorities to provide special guardian kinship carers, who care for previously looked after children, with a financial allowance to be paid at the same rate as foster care. This programme will be backed by an investment of £16 million in 2024/25 and the department will explore expanding eligibility to broader cohorts of kinship carers and all local authorities in the future, subject to the findings of our evaluation. Local authority selection will take place this year. The department will also work with an evaluation partner to make sure the programme can provide robust evidence for future rollout. The department will share further information on the Pathfinder in the coming months.</p> answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed David Johnston question first answered 21/05/2024 16:47:24 answering member 4761 label Biography information for David Johnston
tabling member	5000 label Biography information for Alistair Strathern

1717861

registered interest
date	14/05/2024
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Schools: Mental health services
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 help provide mental health support in schools for young people suffering from eating disorders.
tabling member constituency	Strangford
tabling member printed	Jim Shannon
uin	26163
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 22/05/2024 answer text <p>Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.</p><p> </p><p>Having an eating disorder can often be devastating for young people suffering with the condition, as well as for those around them, which is why the department wants to ensure they have access to the right support, in the right place and at the right time.</p><p>​</p><p>Schools play a vital role in children’s mental health by promoting wellbeing and providing early targeted support and the department is committed to helping them do so effectively.</p><p> </p><p>The department’s statutory health education curriculum, which should be taught in all schools from primary, includes a strong focus on mental health. This includes teaching pupils how to identify the early signs of mental wellbeing concerns and where and how to seek support if they are worried about their own or someone else’s mental health. As part of the secondary health curriculum, schools can teach pupils how to be safe and healthy and manage their lives in a positive way, seeking support when needed. They can also teach about eating disorders, drawing on qualified support or advice as needed for this specialist area. The statutory guidance for relationships, sex and health education is currently under review. The department will be carrying out a full public consultation on the new guidance as soon as possible, and will be considering what more the department can do to strengthen content on eating disorders.</p><p> </p><p>Early intervention is key when a child or young person is experiencing a mental health issue, including problems with eating. To expand access to early mental health support, including supporting schools in liaising with specialist services regarding eating disorders, the department is continuing to roll out Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) to schools and colleges. As of April 2024, MHSTs now cover 44% of pupils in schools and learners in further education in England. The department is extending coverage of MHSTs to at least 50% of pupils and learners by the end of March 2025.</p><p> </p><p>Since 2016, extra funding has also gone into children and young people's community eating disorder services every year, with £53 million per year from 2021/22, rising to £54 million in 2023/24.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed David Johnston question first answered 22/05/2024 15:25:28 answering member 4761 label Biography information for David Johnston
tabling member	4131 label Biography information for Jim Shannon

1717979

registered interest
date	14/05/2024
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Childcare: Suffolk
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 help increase childcare provision in (a) Suffolk Coastal constituency and (b) Suffolk.
tabling member constituency	Suffolk Coastal
tabling member printed	Dr Thérèse Coffey
uin	26129
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 22/05/2024 answer text <p>The department is providing over £4.1 billion by 2027/28 to fund 30 hours of free childcare per week, or 38 weeks per year, for working parents with children aged 9 months to 3 years in England. This will remove one of the biggest barriers to parents working by vastly increasing the amount of free childcare that working families can access. Already, over 200,000 two year olds are now confirmed to have places for 15 hours a week of free childcare, as part of the largest ever expansion of childcare in England, and the rates for the new entitlements have been independently confirmed by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) to be above market rates. The take up nationwide for the validation codes already stands at 87.8%.</p><p> </p><p>Funding will be key to delivering the existing and expanded childcare entitlements, so the department has substantially uplifted the hourly rate paid to local authorities to increase hourly rates paid to childcare providers. In 2024/25 alone, the department expects to provide over £1.7 billion to support local authorities and providers deliver the expansion to the early years entitlements, on top of over £400 million additional funding to deliver a significant uplift to the hourly rate paid to local authorities for the entitlements. Furthermore, to ensure local authorities are fully supported in delivering the new entitlements, the department is funding local authorities an additional four weeks in 2024/25, at an estimated cost of £120 million, for the under 2s working parent entitlement starting in September 2024.</p><p><br> The department’s methodology and the uplift to the rates are informed by data it receives from providers and parents to ensure the department is meeting the pressures faced by the sector. The department regularly surveys a nationally representative sample of over 9,000 providers to gain insights into how they run their provision and the challenges they face. The department also regularly surveys over 6,000 parents to understand their usage of childcare.</p><p> </p><p>For 2024/25, the department’s hourly funding rates for Suffolk are £10.52 for under 2s, £7.74 for 2 year olds and £5.50 for 3 to 4 year olds.</p><p><br> To support the workforce, on 2 February 2024, the department launched ‘Do something Big, work with small children’, which is a new national recruitment campaign to support the recruitment and retention of talented staff to support the expansion of the 30 hours offer. This campaign will raise the profile of the sector, support the recruitment of talented staff and recognise the lifelong impact those working in early years and childcare have on children and their families.</p><p>The department is ensuring a phased implementation of the expansion to the 30 hours offer to allow the market to develop the necessary capacity. The department will continue to monitor the sufficiency of childcare places across the sector. The department’s ‘Childcare and Early Years Provider Survey’ shows that both the number of places available and the workforce has increased since 2022.</p><p><br> Local authorities are responsible for ensuring that the provision of childcare is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents in their area. Where local authorities report sufficiency challenges, the department discusses what action the local authority is taking to address those issues and where needed support the local authority with any specific requirements through its childcare sufficiency support contract. Suffolk has not reported any sufficiency challenges.</p><p> </p><p>The department will continue to work closely with the sector on the implementation of these reforms as it delivers this substantial expansion.</p> answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed David Johnston question first answered 22/05/2024 15:23:34 answering member 4761 label Biography information for David Johnston
tabling member	4098 label Biography information for Dr Thérèse Coffey

1717992

registered interest
date	14/05/2024
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Special Educational Needs: Suffolk
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 adequacy of SEND provision in schools in (a) Suffolk and (b) Suffolk Coastal constituency.
tabling member constituency	Suffolk Coastal
tabling member printed	Dr Thérèse Coffey
uin	26142
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 22/05/2024 answer text <p>The department shares the ambition that children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) should receive the vital support they need.</p><p> </p><p>Where local authorities are failing to deliver consistent outcomes for children and young people with SEND, the department works with them using a set of improvement programmes and SEND specialist advisors to address weaknesses.</p><p> </p><p>In March 2024, the department announced Unity Schools Partnership would run a new special education free school in Suffolk for pupils with severe learning difficulties. This is in addition to the six open special free schools in Suffolk already.</p><p> </p><p>The department is opening over 200 special free schools and, in total, providing over 21,000 places for pupils with special educational needs. Over 10,000 of these places have already been delivered.</p><p> </p><p>A joint local area SEND inspection was undertaken by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission in November 2023. The local area partnership received an outcome of ‘widespread and/or systemic failings leading to significant concerns’. The inspection report was published on 30 January 2024. The Local Area Partnership has since produced a Priority Action Plan which sets out how they will address the two Areas for Priority Action and has also updated its strategic SEND Improvement Plan.</p><p> </p><p>Total high needs funding for children and young people with complex special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) is over £10.5 billion in the 2024/25 financial year, which represents an increase of over 60% from the 2019/20 allocations. Of this, Suffolk County Council is due to receive a high needs funding allocation of £113.9 million in the 2024/25 financial year, which is a cumulative increase of 31% per head over the three years from 2021/22. This funding will help local authorities and schools with the increasing costs of supporting children and young people with SEND.</p> answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed David Johnston question first answered 22/05/2024 15:24:53 answering member 4761 label Biography information for David Johnston
tabling member	4098 label Biography information for Dr Thérèse Coffey

1718047

registered interest
date	14/05/2024
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Special Educational Needs
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many (a) children and (b) adults have required a SEND placement in each of the last 20 years.
tabling member constituency	Redditch
tabling member printed	Rachel Maclean
uin	26239
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 22/05/2024 answer text <p>The department recognises that special educational needs (SEN) is a broad term, and that a child is defined as having a SEN if he or she has a learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be made for him or her. The Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan process is driven by a child's needs rather than any diagnosis they might have. The EHC needs assessment identifies the child or young person’s SEN, together with any relevant health or social care needs. The local authority, with advice from its partners, then considers whether to issue an EHC plan, which specifies provision to meet each identified need. The ‘SEND code of practice: 0 to 25 years’ makes it clear that meeting the needs of a child or young person with SEN does not require a diagnostic label or test. The ‘SEND code of practice: 0 to 25 years’ can be found here: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/send-code-of-practice-0-to-25" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/send-code-of-practice-0-to-25</a>.</p><p> </p><p>Local authorities have a statutory responsibility to assess whether children and young people have SEN that requires an EHC plan if they are requested to do so.</p><p>The department does not hold a breakdown by age group of individuals assessed over the last 10 years because the SEN2 collection has changed into an individual level collection from an aggregate level last year. Therefore, there is one year (2022) that shows the number of assessments carried out broken down by single years of age, which is attached.</p><p> </p><p>In terms of figures over time, the number of people assessed for a statement (which were replaced in 2014 by EHC plans, with no new statements since 2015), the number of individuals assessed for an EHC plan, and the number of people assessed where an EHC plan was issued are available at the following link: <a href="https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/b4f6814c-b0da-43d1-0b12-08dc74c3bb80" target="_blank">https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/b4f6814c-b0da-43d1-0b12-08dc74c3bb80</a></p><p> </p><p>The department publishes information about SEN and EHC plans annually on the GOV.UK website. The information for the 2022/23 academic year can be found here: <a href="https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/special-educational-needs-in-england" target="_blank">https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/special-educational-needs-in-england</a>. The data for the 2023 reporting year can be found here: <a href="https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/education-health-and-care-plans" target="_blank">https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/education-health-and-care-plans</a>.</p> answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed David Johnston grouped question UIN 26242 26243 question first answered 22/05/2024 15:26:46 answering member 4761 label Biography information for David Johnston attachment 1 file name 26239 26242 26243 Table attachment.xlsx title 26239_26242_26243_Table_attachment
tabling member	4668 label Biography information for Rachel Maclean

1718048

registered interest
date	14/05/2024
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Special Educational Needs: Costs
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the average cost was to educate (a) a child and (b) an adult with SEN in each of the last 20 years.
tabling member constituency	Redditch
tabling member printed	Rachel Maclean
uin	26240
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 22/05/2024 answer text <p>Children and young people with special educational needs are educated in a broad range of settings, most of which do not report their costs in a way that enables the department to isolate the costs of their education. Due to this, the department does not hold the information requested on the average cost.</p><p> </p><p>Through the department’s special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and alternative provision (AP) Improvement Plan, the department is reforming the SEND system so that when a child or young person requires specialist provision, they get access to the support they need, and parents do not face an adversarial system to secure this. To support this, the department have increased the high needs budget to £10.54 billion, which is 60% more than in 2019/20. The department is also investing £2.6 billion to deliver new specialist and AP places and improve existing provision.</p> answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed David Johnston question first answered 22/05/2024 15:27:51 answering member 4761 label Biography information for David Johnston
tabling member	4668 label Biography information for Rachel Maclean

1718049

registered interest
date	14/05/2024
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Special Educational Needs: Expenditure
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much was spent on (a) education places and (b) home to school transport for SEND (i) children and (ii) adults by local authority in 2023.
tabling member constituency	Redditch
tabling member printed	Rachel Maclean
uin	26241
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 22/05/2024 answer text <p>Total high needs funding for children and young people with complex special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) is over £10.5 billion in the 2024/25 financial year, which is an increase of over 60% from the 2019/20 allocations. Of this, Worcestershire County Council is due to receive a high needs funding allocation of £90.2 million in 2024/25, which is a cumulative increase of 32% per head over the three years from 2021/22. This funding will help local authorities and schools with the increasing costs of supporting children and young people with SEND.</p><p>Local authorities spent £7.9 billion on education for children and young people with complex SEND in the 2022/23 financial year, the latest year for which actual expenditure is available. The Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) allocated a further £1.0 billion on high needs funding for SEND places in that financial year. The outturn data for expenditure in the 2023/24 financial year is not yet available, but is due to be published in late 2024. Planned expenditure reported by local authorities for that year was £9.4 billion and the ESFA’s expenditure was £1.1 billion. The data does not enable differentiation between children aged 0 to 18 and adults aged 19 to 25. Individual local authority expenditure information is available here: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-local-authority-school-finance-data" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-local-authority-school-finance-data</a>.</p><p>In the 2023/2024 academic year, a further £592 million of disadvantage funding was allocated through the 16 to 19 funding formula for young people aged 16 to 19, or those aged 19 to 24 and who have an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan. Institutions are free to choose the best ways to use this additional funding and use this, in part, to support disadvantaged students including those with learning difficulties and disabilities.</p><p>Local authorities publish information about their expenditure on home-to-school travel for children with special educational needs (SEN) and on post-16 transport for both young people aged 16 to 18 and adults aged 19 to 25 with SEN, learning difficulties or disabilities, but they are not required to specify whether each child, young person, or adult has an EHC plan.</p><p>The information collected from local authorities is published on GOV.UK and can be found here: <a href="https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/la-and-school-expenditure" target="_blank">https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/la-and-school-expenditure</a>. Local authority gross expenditure on SEN transport covering the 2022/23 financial year is set out in the attached table.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed David Johnston question first answered 22/05/2024 15:29:04 answering member 4761 label Biography information for David Johnston attachment 1 file name 26241_attachment_SEN_Transport_Expenditure.xlsx title 26241_attachment_SEN_Transport_Expenditure
tabling member	4668 label Biography information for Rachel Maclean