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31 Jan 2005 : Column 669W—continued

New Deal

Mr. Fisher: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills which schools in Stoke-on-Trent have received money under the New Deal for Schools. [211715]

Mr. Stephen Twigg: The schools that were allocated money under New Deal for Schools during the period 1997 to 2002 were: Sandon High School, The Mitchell High School, Sneyd Green Primary School, St.Margaret Ward RC High School, Florence Primary School, and Dresden Primary School. This information was recorded centrally and local authorities' allocation of resources may differ from this.

Ofsted

Mrs. Spelman: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what the expenditure of Ofsted was in each year since its establishment; and what the estimated budget for the next financial year is. [211941]

Mr. Stephen Twigg: That is a matter for Ofsted. HM Chief Inspector, David Bell, will write to the hon. Member and place a copy of his letter in the House Library.

Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many Ofsted inspectors were employed in each year between 2001–02 and 2003–04; how many are planned to be employed in each year between 2004–05 and 2007–08; and if she will make a statement. [211526]

Mr. Stephen Twigg: That is a matter for Ofsted. HM Chief Inspector, David Bell, will write to the hon. Member and place a copy of his letter in the Library.

Physical Education

Hugh Robertson: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what percentage of primary schools in the UK have a fully qualified physical education teacher. [211835]


 
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Mr. Stephen Twigg: In England, primary school teachers are trained to deliver all subjects in the national curriculum including PE. In the other UK countries this is a matter for the devolved administrations.

In January 2004, there were 196,640 full-time equivalent regular teachers in service in maintained nursery and primary schools in England.

Pre-school Education

Jeremy Corbyn: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many pre-school aged children there are in the Islington, North constituency; how many have places in nurseries or other approved pre-school provision; and how many such places (a) are available at present and (b) are planned. [210712]

Margaret Hodge: The Ofsted stock number of registered child care places (consisting of full day care, childminder and out of school places) available in Islington at March 2004 was 4,567 and increased to 4,878 in December 2004. We are unable to provide statistics for Islington North constituency from Ofsted statistics.

In the period March 2004 to December 2004 Islington local authority (LA) created 733 gross new places. Taking into account turnover (places closing) this added 311 new places to the existing stock. The December registered stock data consists of 987 childminder places, 2,754 full day care places and 1,227 out of school places.

Islington has a target to create 1,300 gross new child care places for the period 2004–06. This includes the 733 places created since March 2004, leaving a further 567 places to be created by March 2006. These places will be created by Islington LA, Early Years Development and Childcare Partnership to meet parental demand.

In addition, all four-year-olds in England have been entitled to a free part-time early education place since September 1998. All three year olds in England have been entitled to a free part-time early education place since April 2004.

The available information on the numbers of free part-time early education places taken up by three and four-year-olds in Islington North parliamentary constituency and Islington local education authority area is shown in the tables. Information for private and voluntary providers is available for Islington but not for Islington North constituency.

Final figures for 2004 on the provision for three and four-year-olds were published in a statistical release 'Provision for children under five years of age in England—January 2004' which is available on the Department's website www.dfes.gov.uk/rsgateway.

Private Children's Homes

Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what steps she has taken to improve the line of accountability for social services Departments who place looked-after children in private children's homes out of area. [210206]

Margaret Hodge: Children's services authorities are in the process of appointing the Directors of Children's Services and Lead Members for Children's Services
 
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required under the Children Act 2004. The Director and Lead Member will improve children's services authority accountability for the placement of all looked after children by, respectively, being professionally and politically responsible on behalf of the authority for the safety and welfare of such children.

Although all members of the authority have a shared responsibility for corporate parenting, the Lead Member will take the lead in ensuring that looked after children have their interests protected, their opportunities maximised, their educational achievement enhanced and their care shaped to met their needs. The 2004 Act also introduces a new duty on local authorities to promote the educational achievement of looked after children.

The Department is currently conducting a review of local authority practice in placing looked after children in other local authority areas, with a view to both reducing their dependence on such placements and improving support for children who are placed out of authority. We intend to write to local authorities shortly reminding them of the importance of placing children locally whenever this can meet their needs and better planning and commissioning in adequate supply of such places.

Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many private children's homes have been registered in each of the last five years. [210207]

Margaret Hodge: Information provided by the Commission for Social Care Inspection on the number of private children's homes registered from 1 April 2002 to 19 January 2005 is shown in the table.

Information is not available prior to 1 April 2002, when the National Care Standards Commission was created.
Private children's homes
2002–03103
2003–04148
2004–05 (1 April to 18 January 2005 only)118

Relationship Counselling

David Taylor: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) what discussions she has had regarding the impact upon charities specialising in (a) marriage counselling and (b) family relationship counselling of the decision to end ring-fencing of Government funds for these services; [209702]

(2) what representations she has received from charities working with young people and families regarding the decision to end ring-fencing of Government funds for relationship counselling; [209712]

(3) what progress has been made in improving (a) marriage counselling and (b) relationship counselling services in (i) North West Leicestershire, (ii) the East Midlands and (iii) England since 1997. [209713]

Margaret Hodge: There has been no decision to end ring-fencing Government funds for marriage counselling and family relationship counselling. Funding for charities specialising in these services was formerly
 
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available through the Marriage and Relationship Support (MARS) grant. The Marriage and Relationship Support grant has now been amalgamated with the former Family Support grant to form the Strengthening Families grant, but the same amount of money is available to support the provision of marriage counselling and family relationship counselling. Marriage and Relationship Support will continue as an integral and important element of family support provision by the Department.

In view of the recent merger of the Marriage and Relationship Support and the Family Support grant programmes we are considering evaluation of the current Marriage and Relationship and Family Support provision.

We have had no representations from the sector in this area.

School Toilets

Shona McIsaac: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills which schools in England have outside toilets. [211142]

Mr. Stephen Twigg: My Department does not hold information regarding schools which have outside toilets.

In 1998 the then Secretary of State announced that £35 million had been allocated to address the issue of school toilets which could only be accessed from outside. At that time around 450 projects were supported by the Department. The money available was not a limit, but an estimate of the requirement. Most authorities brought forward projects at that time and various means have been employed since that time to identify outstanding cases.

Some schools chose to retain outside toilets to provide a useful facility adjacent to playing fields or temporary accommodation.


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