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EDUCATION AND SKILLS

Higher Education

Mr. Boswell: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what plans he has, in conjunction with HEFCE, for improving the sensitivity of the existing postcode premium in encouraging higher education institutions to improve access for disadvantaged students. [110880]

Margaret Hodge: From 2003–04 HEFCE has reformed the widening participation allocation to take into account previous educational attainment and age of students together with where they live. This reform recognises the extra costs associated with recruiting and supporting undergraduate students from disadvantaged backgrounds. As our higher education White Paper makes clear, we are working with HEFCE to explore more sensitive and appropriate measures, and HEFCE will consult further as data becomes available.

Mr. Boswell: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills whether the proposed new higher education grant will be made available to existing students on its introduction in 2004. [110881]

Margaret Hodge: No. As we made clear in the booklet issued at the time that the HE White Paper was published, explaining to students and parents what the changes meant, the grant will be made available to new students starting courses from autumn 2004 onwards.

Higher Education

Mr. Boswell: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what plans he has to improve access to higher education for those combining studies with full-time employment. [110088]

Margaret Hodge: We want the provision of higher education to be flexible to enable people to combine studies with work, where they wish. Our recent White Paper "The future of higher education" sets a

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framework for some of this flexible provision. For example, we are improving support for those studying part-time. We have introduced foundation degrees, which offer flexible modes of study and can be combined with employment, reducing the barriers to learning. We are also supporting the development of the eUniversities project and welcome other flexible forms of provision, such as the online degrees recently announced by Ultralab. Through HEFCE we are trying to encourage a more widespread and consistent use of credit across higher education that will enable a more flexible approach to learning for students.

Children's Centres

Mr. Willis: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what steps are being taken to ensure that the proposed new Children's Centres have a senior manager with an early years teaching qualification. [109298]

Maria Eagle: Children's Centres will provide integrated care and education for young children, health services, family support, and a base for child minders. Managers of Children's Centres will need to have the leadership and management skills to co-ordinate a multi-disciplinary team.

Children's Centres will be required to have strong support for the teaching and learning offered. This should be secured by the employment of qualified teachers so that children using the centre have their activities planned and substantially led by a teacher with early years training or experience. After listening to representations from the teaching profession, the Sure Start Unit has identified that in most centres the employment of an early years teacher on a half-time basis would achieve this objective. However, we expect that this would be a minimum which many centres would exceed, and that others would build on over time.

SARS

Mr. Dismore: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what guidance he has issued to schools to ensure children of Chinese origin are not discriminated against, bullied or intimidated as a result of public concern over SARS; and if he will make a statement. [111784]

Mr. Stephen Twigg [holding answer 7 May 2003]: Officials wrote to all schools in England on 14 April drawing their attention to Government advice on SARS

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on the Department of Health (DH) website. Schools are able to inform and reassure their pupils, which should reduce the tendency to victimise all those of Eastern origin. Any bullying or abuse which does take place should be dealt with in line with anti-bullying polices on which we have issued general advice which has recently been the subject of positive evaluation. This advice refers explicitly to racist bullying and schools are required to report all incidents of racist bullying, including name calling, to their LEA. We would expect schools' standard policies to ensure that no child is discriminated against and therefore have not issued any separate guidance to schools.

Civil Service (People with Disabilities)

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what progress has been made in meeting targets for the proportion of people with disabilities in senior posts in the Department. [110519]

Mr. Charles Clarke: My Department is committed to increasing the proportion of people with disabilities amongst its Senior Civil Service (SCS) staff. A substantial proportion of SCS positions are openly advertised, research is underway to help decide how best to attract more applicants from under-represented groups and a Disability Co-ordinator has been appointed to advise and support disabled staff and actively manage action to make reasonable adjustments to enable them to work as effectively as possible.

My Department's aim is that by 2005, 3 per cent. of those in the SCS should be people with disabilities. The current proportion is 0.7 per cent., and has not changed significantly in the last 2 years.

GCSEs

Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will make a statement on his plans for compulsory GCSEs in all subjects, with particular reference to mathematics. [111713]

Mr. Miliband: There are no plans for compulsory GCSEs in any subject.

Criminal Offences

Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will list, broken down by Act, the offences created in legislation sponsored by his Department and its predecessor since 1997. [112110]

Mr. Charles Clarke: The information sought is summarised in the table.

Act	Section	Offence
Education Act 1997.	40(6)	Wilfully to obstruct an inspector conducting an inspection of a LEA
School Standards and Framework Act 1998	Schedule 26 paragraph 18(4)	Wilfully to obstruct an inspector conducting an inspection of a nursery
Learning and Skills Act 2000	57(6)	Wilfully to obstruct any person exercising functions in relation to inspection by the Adult Learning Inspectorate.
	63(5)	Wilfully to obstruct the Chief Inspector in the exercise of his functions in relation to inspection of further education institutions.
	79(5)	Wilfully to obstruct the Chief Inspector for Wales in the exercise of his functions in relation to inspection of education and training brought within his remit by Part IV of the Act.
	118(7)(a)	Wilfully to obstruct a person carrying out or participating in inspection of services to encourage, enable or assist young persons in education or training.
	119(4)	Disclosure of information supplied for the purpose of provision of services to encourage, enable or assist young persons in education or training.
	122	Wilfully to obstruct a person carrying out or participating in inspection of careers services.
Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001	19	Without reasonable excuse, failing to comply with procedural requirements of the Tribunal.
Education Act 2002	159(1)	To conduct an independent school which is not a registered school.
	159(6)	Wilfully to obstruct the Chief Inspector conducting an investigation into an allegation of an offence under Section 159(1) of the Act.
	164(7)	Wilfully to obstruct a person in the exercise of his functions in relation to the inspection of a registered school.
	165(9)(a)	Failure of a proprietor of a school to comply with an order made under Section 165(8) of the Act.
	167(9)(a)	Failure of a proprietor of a school to comply with an order of the tribunal made under Section 167(5) of the Act.
	Schedule 13 paragraph 2	Contravention by any person of the requirements of Section 79H(3)-(5) The Children Act 1989.

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Departmental Invoices

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will list the occasions on which (a) his Department, (b) agencies and (c) non-departmental public bodies sponsored by his Department failed to pay valid invoices within 30 days or after the agreed credit period in the financial year 2001–02. [104327]

Mr. Charles Clarke: Information on the occasions where my Department and non-departmental public bodies failed to pay valid invoices within 30 days or after the agreed credit period can be obtained only at disproportionate cost. However, I am able to say that the percentage of bills which were paid by my Department within 30 days of receipt of a valid invoice was 95 per cent. for the financial year 2001–02. In addition, the percentage of bills paid by my Department's executive non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs), where the information was available, is shown in the following table. I have no Agencies.

Percentage

NDPB	Paid within 30 days
Adult Learning Inspectorate	90
HEFCE	99
Learning and Skills Council	95
Qualifications and Curriculum Authority	61
Teachers Training Agency	97
CITB	95
British Educational Comms and Tech Agency	N/A
Engineering Construction ITB	N/A
General Teaching Council	N/A
Investors in People	N/A
National College for School Leadership	N/A
Student Loans Company	N/A

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