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17 Sept 2003 : Column 793W—continued
Key Stage 2 (Buckinghamshire)
Mrs. Gillan: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what percentage of 11-year-olds in (a) the Chesham and Amersham constituency and (b) Buckinghamshire have achieved Key Stage 2 in each year since 1997 in (i) maths and (ii) English. [129885]
Mr. Miliband: The percentage of pupils achieving Level 4 or above at Key Stage 2 in (a) the Chesham and Amersham constituency and (b) Buckinghamshire local education authority (LEA) from 1997 to 2003:
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| Chesham and Amersham constituency | Buckinghamshire LEA | England | |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | |||
| 2003(5) | 85 | 80 | 75 |
| 2002 | 86 | 79 | 75 |
| 2001 | 86 | 82 | 75 |
| 2000 | 85 | 81 | 75 |
| 1999 | 83 | 77 | 71 |
| 1998 | 78 | 73 | 65 |
| 1997 | 80 | 73 | 63 |
| Mathematics | |||
| 2003(5) | 81 | 77 | 73 |
| 2002 | 82 | 76 | 73 |
| 2001 | 81 | 76 | 71 |
| 2000 | 82 | 76 | 72 |
| 1999 | 81 | 73 | 69 |
| 1998 | 72 | 64 | 59 |
| 1997 | 75 | 69 | 62 |
(5) Provisional
Older Workers
Mr. Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what assessment he has made of the level of career advice available to workers over 50; what plans he has to improve the profile of the service; and if he will make a statement. [129039]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: During 2002 my officials instigated a project to gauge the career advice needs of the over 45 age group. The findings from this project are being used to improve services and to inform policy for the reform of the information, advice and guidance (IAG) service for adults. A copy of the report has been lodged in the Library. Part of the reform will be to improve the accessibility and visibility of services through development of an overarching identity for IAG services for adults.
Pupil Exclusions
Mr. Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what powers he has to overturn the decision to (a) exclude a pupil and (b) reinstate an excluded pupil; and what effect legislation enacted since 1997 has had on the powers of his office in this respect. [127890]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: The Secretary of State has no powers to overturn the decision to exclude a pupil or to reinstate an excluded pupil. No legislation enacted since 1997 has had any effect on his powers in these respects.
School Exclusions and Suspensions(North Tyneside)
Mr. Alan Campbell: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many school (a) exclusions and (b) suspensions there were in North Tyneside in 2001–02. [130385]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: In 2001–02 there were 56 permanent exclusions from maintained primary, secondary and all special schools in North Tyneside. The table shows how the number and percentage of excluded pupils in North Tyneside compares with regional and national figures.
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| Primary(6) | Secondary(6) | Special(7) | Total | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of permanent exclusions | Percentageof the school population(8) | Number of permanent exclusions | Percentageof the school population(8) | Number of permanent exclusions | Percentageof the school population(8) | Number of permanent exclusions | Percentageof the school population(8) | |
| England | 1,451 | 0.03 | 7,741 | 0.24 | 343 | 0.36 | 9,535 | 0.12 |
| North East | 62 | 0.03 | 409 | 0.23 | 16 | 0.27 | 487 | 0.12 |
| North Tyneside | 5 | 0.03 | 49 | 0.35 | 2 | 0.30 | 56 | 0.18 |
(6) Includes middle schools as deemed.
(7) Includes Maintained and Non-Maintained Special Schools.
(8) The number of permanent exclusions expressed as a percentage of the number (headcount) pupils in Primary, Secondary and Special schools, excluding dualy registered pupils in special schools in January 2002.
The Department has recently started to collect information from Local Education Authorities on both fixed term and permanent exclusions on a termly basis. However, reliable findings from this data collection exercise are not expected to be available until next year.
Skills Acquisition and Accreditation
Mr. Boswell: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what action he is taking to support local technical agreements on skills acquisition and accreditation between employers and further education colleges below national Sector Skills Council requirements. [129983]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: The aim of our recently published skills strategy, "21st Century Skills—Realising Our Potential", is to ensure that employers have the right skills to support the success of their businesses, and individuals have the skills they need to be both employable and personally fulfilled. As with "Success for All", the Department's strategy for the reform of further education, a key part of the strategy is to ensure that colleges and training providers are more responsive to the needs of employers, and those of individual learners. Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) will lead the drive to increase productivity and develop the required skills within their industry sectors. Through sector skills agreements they will work with their employers and with planning and funding agencies like the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) to agree an action plan for addressing priority skills needs. However, further education colleges will continue to determine the specific range and volume of courses they offer and will need to continue to be responsive to their local employers, providing bespoke training based on local agreements as appropriate. The pattern of provision will continue to be agreed in discussion with the local LSC, reflecting national and regional priorities as well of those of the locality.
Student Finance
Mr. Boswell: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what information he collates on differences in the recovery of outstanding student loans from graduates who are (a) based in the United Kingdom and (b) resident abroad. [129731]
Alan Johnson: Student loans are available to students domiciled in the United Kingdom. Data are collected on the payment and repayment of student loans, separately for income contingent loans (which were introduced in September 1998 as part of the new student support arrangements) and mortgage style loans (mostly
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applying to those who entered higher education before academic year 1998/99). These data are split according to the domicile of the borrower at the point of entering HE.
Data on the current residence of the mortgage style loan borrowers are not available in the Department. The recovery regime for these loans is the same for all borrowers whether resident in or outside of the UK. These loans are repayable on a mortgage style basis over five or seven years, depending on the number of loans taken out. Borrowers may apply to defer repayments for up to a year at a time if their income is below the current deferment threshold, otherwise repayments will be collected, whether the borrower is overseas or not.
Repayments of income contingent loans from borrowers resident in the UK are reported at the time when the Student Loans Company are notified of the repayments by the Inland Revenue, which may be one or more years after the tax year they relate to. Due to the time lag in collecting the information from the Inland Revenue it is too early in the scheme to have robust data for either comparison or trend purposes.
The Student Loans Company operates a separate recovery regime for income contingent loan borrowers who are outside of the UK tax system. The mechanism for collecting repayments requires borrowers to declare their total annual income to the SLC who calculate the repayment due, mirroring the rules applying to borrowers within the tax system. Sufficient robust data are not yet available.
Teacher Workloads
Mr. Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what meetings he has had with (a) the Secondary Heads Association, (b) the Local Government Association, (c) the National Union of Teachers, (d) National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers and (e) National Association of Head Teachers with regard to the teachers workload agreement since January. [127878]
Mr. Miliband: I have chaired several of the regular meetings of the Workforce Agreement Monitoring Group, which comprises representatives from the signatories to the Agreement. The group includes SHA, NAHT, NASUWT and the LGA.
The NUT chose not to sign the National Agreement and have therefore excluded themselves from those meetings. However, I recently met a delegation from the NUT to discuss their response to the statutory consultation on implementing the National Agreement,
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which included changes to the School Teachers' Pay and Conditions Document, draft regulations to be made under section 133 of the Education Act 2002 and accompanying guidance.
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