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25 Oct 2004 : Column 976W—continued

Contact Centres

Mrs. May: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what funds will be available to open supervised contact centres for the rest of this financial year. [192528]

Margaret Hodge: Funding has been made available to establish 14 new supervised contact centres. This funding was announced in March 2004, just before the start of the current financial year.

Disadvantaged Areas

Mr. Andrew Turner: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills pursuant to the answer of 14 June 2004, Official Report, column 769W, if he will list the most disadvantaged areas in which the scheme will commence; and on what basis the levels of disadvantage were determined in each case. [192723]

Margaret Hodge [holding answer 19 October 2004]: Children's centres funding is currently focused on the
 
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20 per cent. most disadvantaged wards in England, defined by the Indices of Deprivation 2000 at the time of notifying local authorities of their funding in February 2003. This ward classification is available on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's website at: www.odpm.gov.uk Within these areas, local authorities and their strategic partners are responsible for deciding how and where children's centres will be developed, based both on local need and the national policy aim to develop good quality existing early years provision wherever possible. Local authorities also have the flexibility to locate centres in pockets of deprivation outside of the 20 per cent. most disadvantaged wards.

Early Intervention Pilots

Mr. Frank Field: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will make a statement on the progress of the early intervention pilots to ensure that children have access to both parents. [193052]

Margaret Hodge [holding answer 21 October 2004]: The Family Resolutions Pilot Project is running in three areas—Brighton, Sunderland and the Inner London Family Proceedings Court—from September 2004 to September 2005. The Family Resolutions Pilot Project is described in the recent Green Paper, "Parental Separation: Children's Needs and Parents' Responsibilities", published on 21 July 2004. It aims to assist parents to avoid litigation in disputed cases of contact and residence. The pilots are based on the Government's policy that children benefit from maintaining a worthwhile relationship with both parents following divorce or separation, where it is safe to do so.

In two group sessions parties will, with the support of qualified group work facilitators, focus on listening to the views of children and developing their conflict management skills. Following these session, parties will work together with the aid of a CAFCASS family court adviser to develop a mutually agreed set of arrangements, drawing on the Government's Parenting Plan materials for guidance.

The use of the Parenting Plans will help parties to draw up a structured approach about their future co-operation. The plans give advice and guidance on how to draw up an agreement, copies of which parties can sign off and exchange. They contain detailed checklists identifying the types of issues parties need to cover, such as living arrangements; who the child may want to stay in contact with across the wider family; dealing with holiday arrangements; handling issues about religion; school and out-of-school activities; keeping everyone informed about health issues; and coping with changes such as the child growing up and needing more independence. Once agreed, plans can be taken back to the court for approval through a consent order.

As made clears in the Parental Separation Green Paper, we are undertaking work to develop the existing Parenting Plans, to include examples of how contact arrangements can work in a variety of family circumstances.

Further Education Funding

Paul Holmes: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what guidance his Department
 
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has given to the Learning and Skills Council on the allocation of the extra funding provided for further education in June. [190573]

Mr. Ivan Lewis: Over the last year the further education (FE) sector and other providers have exceeded expectations in participation, retention and attainment and this success has created pressures on funding for this year. We announced on 14 June that we will add £130 million extra to the Learning and Skills Council's (LSC's) budget. We agreed with the LSC that this important extra investment would enable FE funding allocations for 2004/05 to be kept in line with earlier indicative budgets for all colleges that are performing to target.

Internet Access (Hounslow)

Ann Keen: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what percentage of the £58 million announced in 2000 as part of the Excellence in Cities programme has been used to enhance pupils' access to the internet in the London Borough of Hounslow. [192584]

Mr. Miliband: The Department does not hold centrally figures for individual authority spending on enhancing pupils' access to the internet but the local authority informs us that all Hounslow schools now have access. For details of grants allocated specifically for ICT I refer my hon. Friend to "Funding for ICT in Schools in England" which is available in the House Library.

The main planks of Excellence in Cities ICT spending have been to establish and support a network of 105 City Learning Centres serving groups of schools in each EiC authority. Hounslow has two City Learning Centres that opened within the last year at a cost of £1.2 million each.

Lifelong Learning

Mr. Kidney: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what strategic role he intends (a) the Open University and (b) adult residential colleges to perform in the delivery of lifelong learning. [191971]

Mr. Ivan Lewis: The Open University will continue to make a significant contribution to the lifelong learning agenda. The Open University with its open access policy has enabled, and will continue to enable, people to develop their education at all levels. It has always been innovative in its teaching and learning delivery and through this has contributed to widening adult participation in learning.

Adult residential colleges which are members of the Adult Residential Colleges Association (ARCA) provide valuable learning opportunities for adults especially for older people seeking to learn for personal development. The role and contribution of individual ARCA colleges has to be planned and set in the local context through the LSC's mechanisms for planning provision and agreeing the role of individual providers. The LSC is currently consulting on the reform of the planning and funding of first steps and personal and community development learning. As part of this, discussions are taking place between ARCA and the LSC on the future position of these colleges.
 
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Male Teachers

Mr. Willis: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many male primary school teachers there are in (a) England, (b) each region and (c) each local education authority; and how many of those are head teachers with no scheduled classroom time. [192118]

Mr. Miliband: The information requested has been placed in the Libraries.

Ministerial Expenses

Mr. Prisk: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how much the Department spent on (a) maintenance, (b) renovation, (c) council tax and (d) running costs of residential properties used by Ministers and officials in each year since 1997. [191406]

Mr. Ivan Lewis: My Department has not had any costs relating to Government owned official residences since 1997.

Nursery Education (York)

Hugh Bayley: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many (a) three and (b) four year olds in York attended nursery classes in (i) 1997 and (ii) 2003. [191162]

Margaret Hodge: The information requested is shown in the following table.
Children aged 3 and 4 (8) , (9) in nursery classes in maintained primary schools in the City of York local education authority area. 1997 and 2003 Position in January each year

3 year olds4 year olds
1997610380
2003560330


(8) Headcount of children aged three and four at 31 December in the previous calendar year.
(9) Figures are rounded to the nearest 10 pupils.
Source:
Annual Schools' Census


The latest figures on provision for three and four year olds in England were published on 27 May in a Statistical Release 'Provision for children under five years of age in England—January 2004', a copy of which is available on the Department's website www.dfes.gov.uk/rsgateway/. Final figures for 2004 are scheduled to be published in a Statistical First Release on 28 October.


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