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5 May 2004 : Column 1587W—continued

Pupil Behaviour

Charles Hendry: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what projects his Department has initiated to improve the behaviour and attendance of pupils in schools; and what the total budget for each of the projects is. [170026]

Mr. Ivan Lewis [holding answer 30 April 2004]: The present Government spending on behaviour and attendance related activities and projects since 1997 is set out in the table.

Grant/scheme	Year	Amount (£ million)
Behaviour Grant	1997–98	10.4
	1998–99	11.4
Schools Inclusion:
Pupil Support Grant (SIPS)	1999–2000	28.5
	2000–01	69.1
	2002–03	84.5
Behaviour Improvement Programme	2002–03	50
	2003–04	85
KS3 Behaviour and Attendance Strand	2003–04	24
Primary Behaviour and Attendance pilot	2003–04	5
Positive Activities for Young People funding	2003–04	24
Funding to EiC areas for Learning Support Units and Learning Mentors	1999–2000	17
	2000–01	69
	2001–02	103
	2002–03	121
	2003–04	134

In December 2002, the Secretary of State launched the Improving Behaviour and Attendance Programme, a coordinated programme with various universal projects including the behaviour and attendance strand of the Key Stage 3 strategy, which provides all secondary schools with audit and training materials and consultancy support (and a primary strategy currently being piloted); new legislation in the Anti-Social Behaviour Bill to reinforce parental responsibility for behaviour and attendance, national truancy sweep campaigns; and the anti-bullying charter. Certain targeted schools, such as those in EiC and high street crime areas, receive more intensive support through the Behaviour Improvement Programme. BIP provides assistance to those most in need, though Learning Mentors; Learning Support Units; multi-agency Behaviour and Education Support Teams; and police in schools.

Pupils (Continence Problems)

Dr. Murrison: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what assessment he has made of the extent to which continence problems are a factor for exclusion in schools. [171131]

 
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Mr. Ivan Lewis: This information is not available. My Department started to collect data on the reasons for exclusions from summer term 2003, but this does not pick up any continence or other medical-related exclusions. Pupils should only be excluded from school in response to serious breaches of the school's behaviour policy and if allowing the pupil to remain in school would seriously harm the education or welfare of the pupil or others in the school.

Return-to-work Skills

Mr. Neil Turner: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many women in Wigan have visited an information and communications technology training centre in order to learn skills to return to work. [169361]

Mr. Ivan Lewis: In the period October 2003 ¹ —March 2004, 5,200 people visited a UK online centre in Wigan; 2,912 (56 per cent.) of these people were women. Since Learndirect was launched in 1999, 6,066 people from Wigan have enrolled on a Learndirect course. 3,331 (55 per cent.) of these people were women. Of the total number of women who enrolled on a course, 8 per cent. did so in order to learn skills to return to work.

¹ Please note the complete statistics are not available for UK online prior to September 2003 as the DfES did not collect these data on a centre-by-centre basis.

Rights of Access (Fathers)

Mr. Burns: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will make a statement on the legal framework underpinning the rights of access for fathers to children following marital breakdown. [168412]

Margaret Hodge [holding answer 27 April 2004]: The Children Act 1989 establishes the legal framework within which most separated parents are able to reach agreement about arrangements for the future of their children without recourse to the courts. However, it is open to any parent to apply for a contact or residence order, regardless of whether the parents are (or have been) married to each other. In all questions that come before the court about the upbringing of a child, including issues of residence and contact, the court is required to treat the welfare of the child concerned as its paramount consideration. In considering contact applications, the court will decide on the facts of each individual case what is in the best interests of the child. There is no automatic "right" of contact for either fathers or mothers. The interests of the child come first.

The Government have no plans to amend the Children Act 1989 in relation to this core principle.
 
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The Government recognise that the facilitation and enforcement of contact orders is a serious issue. I refer the hon. Member to the announcement I made on 19 March regarding the Government's response to the Children Act Sub-Committee Report 'Making Contact Work', and to the on-going work on the facilitation and enforcement of contact by the Department of Constitutional Affairs.

School Computers

Mr. Meacher: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) how much public funding has been spent on computers for schools in Oldham, West and Royton in each of the last seven years; [170925]

(2) how much money has been allocated to schools in Oldham West and Royton for information and communications technologies since 2001. [170931]

Mr. Charles Clarke: My Department does not collect information on school spend on computers at constituency level. However, Oldham, West and Royton is in Oldham LEA and in the last seven years schools in Oldham have benefited from the following funding through the Standards Fund grant for ICT (including match funding from the LEA):

	Allocation to Oldham LEA (£)
1998–99	570,322
1999–2000	651,147
2000–01	1,132,641
2001–02	1,244,258
2002–03	1,826,832
2003–04	1,828,641
2004–05	2,329,471

Mr. Benton: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) how much public funding has been spent on computers for schools in Bootle in each of the last seven years; [171125]

(2) how much money has been allocated to schools in Bootle for information and communications technology since 1997. [171297]

Mr. Charles Clarke: My Department does not collect information on school spend on computers at constituency level. However, Bootle is in Sefton LEA and in the last seven years schools in Sefton have benefited from the following funding through the Standards Fund grant for ICT (including match funding from the LEA):

	Allocation to Sefton LEA (£)
1998–99	587,146
1999–2000	813,934
2000–01	955,931
2001–02	1,350,818
2002–03	1,890,315
2003–04	1,925,992
2004–05	2,492,326

Mr. Hendrick: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how much public funding has been spent on computers for schools in Preston in each of the last seven years. [168124]

 
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Mr. Charles Clarke: My Department does not collect information on school spend on computers at constituency level. However, Preston is in Lancashire LEA and in the last seven years schools in Lancashire have benefited from the following funding through the Standards Fund grant for ICT (including match funding from the LEA):

	Allocation to Lancashire LEA (£)
1998–99	2,500,000
1999–2000	1,627,867
2000–01	5,576,036
2001–02	6,483,142
2002–03	8,983,493
2003–04	9,169,124
2004–05	11,892,478

School Results

Mr. Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what procedures are used to (a) collect information on the results of (i) SATs, (ii) GCSEs and (iii) A levels from schools and (b) prepare that information for publication. [170312]

Mr. Miliband [holding answer 4 May 2004]: We do not collect test and examination results direct from schools. The National Curriculum test results for Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 are provided to the Department by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority's National Assessment Agency (NAA). The NAA collect those results from the External Marking Agencies at the same time as the results are issued to schools. Similarly, GCSE and A level examination results come to the Department from the Awarding Bodies at the same time as the results issue to students and schools.

To enable publication of accurate information in the school and college performance tables, we collate the test and examination results achieved by pupils and ask schools to check (and if necessary amend) the information held centrally by the Department. This relieves schools of the burden of providing all the information direct, while enabling verification that our data and calculations are correct prior to publication.

Mr. Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what steps have been taken to assess the validity of the methodology for producing school value-added results; and how the results have been verified. [170313]

Mr. Miliband [holding answer 4 May 2004]: The methodology used by the Department for producing school VA results has been arrived at after a long process of development. This was initiated by the "National Value added project" commissioned by SCAA (a forerunner of QCA) which reported in 1997. The project, carried out by leading academics at Durham university, showed that it was valid to measure school value added using progress between Key Stage tests and public examination results.

The findings of this project were used to develop a detailed methodology for the Autumn Package, which has been used by schools for self-improvement from 1998 onwards, and then piloted for the Performance Tables with a sample of schools within each key stage. As part of each stage of piloting, there was an extensive
 
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evaluation process including discussing both methodological and practical issues with the pilot schools. This showed that that the methodology was broadly understood and accepted as valid by schools. There followed a full consultation exercise, before rolling out publication of a key stage to all schools.

At an early stage in this process the methodology was discussed at a meeting of the Education subgroup of the Royal Statistical Society.

In producing the value added measures each year, the underlying pupil data on prior and current attainment is provided to schools for checking, to ensure that all results are accurate and have been matched correctly.

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