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African Educational Institutions

Hugh Bayley: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what assistance his Department gives to English schools to work with schools in Africa. [165706]

Alan Johnson: My Department is committed to international school linking and partnership activity, which can provide a powerful and enjoyable framework for the delivery of curriculum objectives, increase motivation, and raise awareness of citizenship and global issues within schools.

To encourage and support this aim the Global Gateway, our new one-stop-shop website for international education, was launched in February 2004. Managed on our behalf by the British Council, the Global Gateway, enables schools to find partner schools in other countries and provides information about development programmes.

My Department funds various programmes through which schools are supported in their work with Africa. This includes:

grant funding to the British Council to provide school linking services and advice, grants for schools to go on linking visits, and to deliver specific programmes such as the linking of 150 schools to South African schools;

grant funding to the League for the Exchange of Commonwealth Teachers, to pay for teacher exchange and linking throughout the Commonwealth including a range of African countries;

the Teachers' International Professional Development (TIPD) Programme, introduced in May 2000, which promotes links between UK schools and schools in other countries by providing for teacher study visits. To date 1,053 teachers have visited Africa on this programme;

support for the teacher development work and opportunities offered by Voluntary Services Overseas, including support for the Sabbatical Guide booklet (produced in 2003). We are also developing new work, such as with the Link Community Development on the 'Global Teachers Awards' under which 50 teachers a year will work on educational projects in Africa;

In addition, our Sustainable Development Action Plan in Education and Skills aims to raise awareness of global development issues and developing countries in our schools, and we are working closely with the Department for International Development and other organisations to deliver this goal.

Apprenticeships

Mr. Meacher: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many residents of Oldham, West and Royton have undertaken apprenticeships in each of the last five years. [170933]

Mr. Ivan Lewis: The information requested is not available at parliamentary constituency level. Nor is the information available on a consistent geographical basis over the last five years. However, the following table shows the number of starts on modern apprenticeships in the Greater Manchester Learning and Skills Council (LSC) area between April 2001 and the end of July 2003, as well as the number of starts from April 1996 to March 2001 in the six Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs) that amalgamated into Greater Manchester LSC—Bolton and Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport and High Peak and Wigan.
 
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TEC/LSC	Advanced MAs	Foundation MAs
April 1998 to March 1999
Bolton and Bury CCTE	800	600
Manchester	2,400	700
Oldham CCTE	400	300
Rochdale CCTE	500	100
Stockport and High Peak(13)	800	100
Wigan CCTE	700	300
April 1999 to March 2000
Bolton and Bury CCTE	900	1000
Manchester	2,800	1,800
Oldham CCTE	500	500
Rochdale CCTE	500	600
Stockport and High Peak(13)	700	700
Wigan CCTE	700	600
April 2000 to March 2001
Bolton and Bury CCTE	700	1,200
Manchester	3,200	2,600
Oldham CCTE	500	700
Rochdale CCTE	400	700
Stockport and High Peak(13)	800	1,000
Wigan CCTE	900	800
April 2001 to July 2002
Greater Manchester LSC	4,800	9,800
March 2001 to July 2002
Greater Manchester LSC	2,900	6,800

⁽¹³⁾ Denotes TEC also became part of Derbyshire LSC
Notes:
TECs reported the figures in financial years. LSC reports figures in academic years.
Source:
TEC management information
LSC Individualised Learner Record

The first LSC 'year' was 16 months in order to bring the financial year figures into line with academic years.

Boarding Schools

Mr. Maude: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many boarding schools the National Care Standards Commission has inspected; how many were identified as having a significant defect; and if he will estimate the cost of such inspections in each year since the inspections began. [164263]

Margaret Hodge: Boarding schools are inspected once every three years.

Between 1 April 2002 and 29 February 2004, 116 boarding schools have been inspected by the National Care Standards Commission. The estimated cost of each of these inspections was £1,477 for 2002–03 and £1,566 for 2003–04.

Where the National Care Standards Commission had concerns about services failing to safeguard the welfare of children provided with accommodation by a school or college, they were required under section 105(2) of the Care Standards Act 2000, to make a statutory notification to (i) the relevant education authority or (ii) the Secretary of State. Two such notifications have been made between 1 April 2002 and 29 February 2004.

Building Schools for the Future

Dr. Kumar: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what progress he is making with his Building Schools for the Future programme. [169301]

 
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Mr. Miliband: We have made excellent progress on Building Schools for the Future, working closely with local government and other partners. This is starting to deliver our commitment to a 10 to 15-year programme of rebuilding and renewal to ensure that secondary education in every part of England has facilities of 21-Century standard.

Four in five respondents to our consultation last year supported our new approach to capital investment. In February 2004, we announced the first wave of 16 projects, involving an estimated 180 schools across 19 local authorities. We also published 11 exemplar designs which show what the schools of the future may look like. This month, we have established Partnerships for Schools, a new body to ensure that the investment is good value for money. Lastly, following the Chancellor's announcement of this Department's spending review settlement, we are well placed to announce the next waves of projects later this year.

Child Care Subsidies

Mrs. Brooke: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what discussions he has had with providers of subsidies for child care places; and which three sources provided the highest subsidy for child care    places in the latest year for which figures are available. [168367]

Margaret Hodge: We hold discussions with a range of organisations that help with the cost of child care in variety of ways, on both the supply and demand sides. Government provides the following substantial support for key groups of parents with their child care costs:

The working tax credit where working parents can receive help with up to 70 per cent. of the costs of child care, subject to limits of £200 a week, or £135 a week for one child. This is paying out well over £700 million a year and can help families with incomes up to £42,500, where the family has two or more children;

The Care to Learn scheme for teenage parents that can provide up to £5,000 a year for those returning to education;

The new deal for lone parents can cover child care costs for lone parents going on training, attending interviews or working up to 16 hours a week, up to the same limits as the child care element of the Working Tax Credit;

The Childcare Grant pays full time HE students with dependent children up to 85 per cent. of actual child care costs up to the same limits as for the WTC;

The national health service provided over £70 million since April 2001 for child care for NHS staff, with a significant amount of that being capital costs for building nurseries or direct subsidies to parents to help with child care costs.

Help with the cost of child care was considered as part of the child care review and in the Budget we announced that:

From April 2005 a new tax exemption will apply to both employer-contracted child care and child care vouchers to encourage more employers to support their staff with child care.

Government will be consulting in Summer 2004 on a voluntary light touch approval scheme extending access to the child care element of the working tax credit to users of a broad range of additional types of child care, to be implemented by April 2005.

It is not possible to make meaningful comparisons between organisations that subsidise the cost of child care but the recently published National Audit Office report (Early Years: Progress in developing high quality child care and early education accessible to all, HC 268,
 
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27 February 2004) provides a helpful overview of the situation, showing, on page three, how much different sectors contributed to the total cost of child care across the country in 2002–03:

	£ million	Percentage
Private individuals (parents)	3,010	45
Local government	2,540	38
DfES and Sure Start	680	10
Childcare Tax Credit	315	5
Private companies	140	2

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