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New Deal (Greater London)
Mr. Cox:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will make a statement on the progress of the New Deal in the Greater London area. [79076]
13 Apr 1999 : Column: 164
Mr. Andrew Smith:
Responsibility for the subject of these questions has been delegated to the Employment Service agency under its Chief Executive. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.
Letter from Leigh Lewis to Mr. Tom Cox, dated 13 April 1999:
Mr. Todd:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment when Derbyshire County Council will be able to bid for Sure Start funding. [79077]
Ms Jowell:
On 19 January, I invited the first applications for Sure Start funding from 60 areas of England. I plan to issue further guidance on the next round later in the year.
Dr. Kumar:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what discussions he has held with Middlesbrough Borough Council regarding improvements in education results; and if he will make a statement. [79411]
Ms Estelle Morris:
Within the past twelve months, the Standards and Effectiveness Unit's advisers for Middlesbrough have had five meetings with the local education authority in relation to the authority's Education Development Plan (EDP) and a number of meetings to discuss Middlesbrough's Education Action Zone (EAZ), its literacy and numeracy targets, and other standards issues.
Middlesbrough has now established a rigorous process to support statutory target setting in order to make improvements on its results, and last week Middlesbrough's EDP was given approval for the full three years. I also understand that the work on the EAZ is progressing well.
13 Apr 1999 : Column: 165
Mr. Hancock:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what representations he has received concerning the length of time available for responses to the Green Paper on teachers. [79554]
Ms Estelle Morris:
Very little comment has been made about the four months available for responding to the Green Paper, Teachers: Meeting the Challenge of Change.
Mr. Hancock:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment to whom (a) the Green Paper on teaching and (b) the associated technical paper were distributed. [80093]
Ms Estelle Morris:
Copies of the Green Paper, Teachers: meeting the challenge of change, and the Technical consultation paper on pay and performance were distributed to all schools in England (both headteachers and chairs of governing bodies), local education authorities in England, the main teacher unions and, in addition, to several hundred bodies with an interest education. In addition, approximately 880,000 copies of the Green Paper summary have been distributed.
Mr. Truswell:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment which schools have been selected for consultation on the technical paper on teachers' pay; and on what basis were they chosen. [79381]
Ms Estelle Morris:
The schools selected as the sample group for consultation on the Technical Consultation Document on Pay and Performance Management have been given the opportunity to request that their responses remain confidential. We therefore do not wish to pre-empt this by announcing the participating schools.
The sample was selected systematically from each of six school types: nursery (150 schools selected), primary (275), secondary (300), special (150), PRUs (150), and hospital schools (all). It covered a regionally representative range of LEAs, and avoided schools which had been selected to form the sample in other recent consultation exercises.
Dr. Gibson:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will make it his policy to collect information on expenditure by local education authorities on school science. [79538]
Ms Estelle Morris:
The Government have no plan to introduce such a policy. It is not practicable to isolate expenditure by local education authorities on specific areas of the curriculum. Decisions on the allocation of resources between curriculum areas are a matter for individual schools.
Sir Robert Smith:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment for what purposes his Department and its executive agencies require a birth certificate to be furnished by (i) employees, (ii) contractors, (iii) those applying for employment or contracts and (iv) other persons. [79556]
13 Apr 1999 : Column: 166
Mr. Mudie:
Before making any appointment, the Department must verify identity, age and nationality. Candidates have the option to produce a birth certificate to fulfil this requirement. It is not Departmental policy to ask contractors to produce Birth Certificates. A number of my Department's programmes have age eligibility criteria where again one of the applicants' options is to produce a Birth Certificate.
Mr. Don Foster:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will list the research commissioned from the People's Panel by his Department; and in each case what was the purpose of the research and what was its cost. [79555]
Mr. Charles Clarke:
The People's Panel has been set up to consult the public about how public services are delivered, and to use their ideas to help improve them. The Department has commissioned 2 pieces of research to help us do that:
Dr. Kumar:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what steps he is taking to ensure that the extra money allocated by his Department for each of the schools in the boroughs of (a) Middlesbrough, (b) Stockton, (c) Redcar and Cleveland and (d) Hartlepool is passed on by the local education authority to each of the schools. [79659]
Ms Estelle Morris:
My right hon. Friend has written to all English Local Education Authorities to urge them to ensure that the additional provision which we have made available is actually spent on education and, in particular, is used to support schools so that the resources can be spent directly on raising standards. We will be monitoring the financial returns of all authorities to see whether the cash increase in the education SSA has been used to support education, and how much has been passed through to schools.
Dr. Kumar:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will estimate the additional money to be allocated to each school in the boroughs of (a) Middlesbrough, (b) Stockton, (c) Redcar and Cleveland and (d) Hartlepool from 1 April 1999 relative to that allocated in 1998-99. [79660]
Ms Estelle Morris:
Local education authorities are currently in the process of submitting details of their budget proposals for the financial year 1999-2000 to the Department. I will write to the hon. Member when the figures he requests are available, and a copy of my letter will be placed in the Library.
13 Apr 1999 : Column: 167
As the Employment Service is an Executive Agency, the Secretary of State for Education and Employment has asked me to reply to your question about the progress of the New Deal in the Greater London area. This is something which falls within the responsibilities delegated to me as Chief Executive of the Agency.
The New Deal has made an encouraging state in London. Government Statistical Service figures to the end of January 1999 show that in Greater London over 36,000 young people have joined the New Deal. Of these, nearly 6,000 have found unsubsidised jobs. Nearly, 7,000 have joined one of the four New Deal Options with 1,188 joining subsidised employment, 4,081 joining Full Time Education and Training and 1,726 joining the Voluntary Sector and Environment Task Force Options. The majority of remaining entrants are on the Gateway phase of the programme. In the older age group, over 20,000 people have joined the New Deal for long term unemployed people aged 25 or over, of whom over 1,300 have already found jobs and almost 1,000 have already taken up training or education opportunities. Of the remainder the great majority are, as we would expect at this stage, on the advisory phase of the programme.
Our aim is to build on this progress through our programme of continuous improvement, working with the New Deal partnerships in each of our Units of Delivery. This work is being supported by the London Employers Coalition which is focusing on continuous improvement and on increasing business participation in New Deal in London.
I hope this is helpful.
on the sources of help and advice on careers to young people at school. We wanted to know which were the most important to people, and what they thought could be done to improve the help and advice young people are given about their future careers. This was part of the first survey and was funded by the Cabinet Office who are responsible for setting up the People's Panel;
6 focus groups were set up to investigate parent's attitudes towards including value added information in school performance tables, and the format in which they should be provided. The cost of the work was £13,000. It will help us develop measures that are useful to parents.
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