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21 Feb 2005 : Column 255W—continued
York Minster
Mr. Gordon Prentice:
To ask the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, representing the Church Commissioners,
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what estimate the commissioners have made of the cost of restoring the fabric and maintaining the structures of York Cathedral; and if he will make a statement. [217008]
Sir Stuart Bell: York Minster has recently identified the need for major repair work on the East Front. The Cathedrals Fabric Commission is involved in discussion with the Chapter and has encouraged it to look at all the options. Any estimates of costs would be a matter for the Chapter.
I should add by way of the statement requested by my hon. Friend that in 2003 the Commissioners provided £2.5 million in grants to cathedrals and spent £3.8 million on cathedral clergy stipends. In the case of York Minster, it receives no other financial support from the Commissioners, whose grants are targeted on the least well resourced.
EDUCATION AND SKILLS
Bullying
Mr. Hoyle: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if she will make a statement on steps taken by local education authorities to stop bullying in (a) primary and (b) secondary schools. [216308]
Derek Twigg: There is much effective practice in preventing and addressing bullying in many LEAs around the country and the 'Make The Difference' conference programme has allowed this work to be shared and celebrated. The conferences offered LEAs as well as schools an opportunity to learn at first hand from the very successful. Many LEAs were represented at the nine regional conferences, either as speakers, workshop leaders or delegates, and evaluations tell us that attendees left feeling inspired and motivated.
The Anti Bullying Alliance (ABA) has been funded to sustain the momentum created by those conferences and each of their regional leads is working with the LEAs in its region to promote best practice and develop innovative and practical approaches to tackle bullying at strategic level. Anti bullying work has a high profile within the Key Stage 3 behaviour and attendance (B and A) strand and within the primary behaviour and attendance pilot, and there are KS3 Behaviour and Attendance Consultants in every LEA working directly with schools to tackle a range of behaviour issues including bullying.
Many LEAs provide guidance on anti bullying to their schools to supplement and localise the guidance issued by the DfES nationally, and advice to parents on what to do if they are worried their child is being bullied.
We know that LEAs around the country are at various stages of addressing this agenda. A number are well advanced and have been successfully working in this area for a number of years and other LEAs have recently appointed dedicated anti bullying officers or are considering doing so, but some have yet to tackle the problem in a structured and systematic way. We will continue to work through the national strategies and the ABA to encourage these LEAs to move forward on this agenda.
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Capita SIMS System
Mr. Forth: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what assessment she has made of the accuracy of the 2005 Pupil Level Annual School Census returns derived from Capita SIMS systems in schools. [215723]
Mr. Stephen Twigg: As we are still in the process of collecting the Annual School Census data, we have not yet made an assessment of the accuracy of any of the data derived from any of the management information systems available to schools.
However, this process will start shortly and data derived from the Capita SIMS system will be subject to the same rigorous quality assessment as those from all other school management information systems.
Mr. Forth: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many secondary schools have reported problems with Capita SIMS.net systems. [215724]
Mr. Stephen Twigg: We have received reports from around 500 schools (normally via their local education authority) regarding software issues from December 2004 to date. While this is higher than in the same period last year, we have been able to resolve the vast majority.
We are continuing to monitor the situation and are working closely with Capita to keep problems to a minimum.
Child Abuse
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what her targets are for reduction in child abuse deaths over the next 10 years. [213113]
Margaret Hodge: The Government does not have specific targets to reduce the numbers of child abuse deaths. We do want all children to stay safe and to reduce the number of avoidable child deaths. That is why following the Laming Inquiry that reported on the terrible death of Victoria Climbie" we have introduced a major programme of action called Every Child Matters: Change for Children". This includes the introduction of: a duty on key local services to safeguard and promote the welfare of children; Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCBs) to make sure that local agencies and services are doing this effectively; Local Screening Teams to investigate all unexpected child deaths; better sharing of information, with new systems for all local agencies to share concerns that they have about a particular child; and a new inspection framework. Agencies' involvement in LSCBs and the work of LSCBs themselves will be assessed regularly by the relevant inspectorates.
We have provided £90 million in 2004–05 and 2005–06 as a Specific Formula Grant to support councils in improving their services to safeguard children.
Child Care Places
Mr. Kevan Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what the change has been in the number of child care places in North Durham since 2001. [214671]
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Margaret Hodge: The information is not available in the form requested. The available information on child care places and nursery education places is shown in the tables.
The available information on child care places for Durham local authority area is shown in Tables 1 and 2.
(80) Rounded to the nearest 100 places.
(81) Data Source: Ofsted
n/a = Not available.
(82) Figures have been rounded to the nearest 10 or 100 places.
(83) Data Source: Children's Day Care Facilities Survey.
(84) From 1999, places were counted once for each school holiday. Before 1999, places were counted once each year.
The figures for child care places for 2003 and 2004 are not directly comparable with the day care figures for 1997–2001. The figures for 2003 and 2004 were derived from the Ofsted database of registered child care providers. The figures for 1997–2001 were derived from the Children's Day Care Facilities Survey, which was discontinued in 2001. There are no figures for 2002.
With the introduction of the National Day Care Standards and the transfer of responsibilities for registration and inspection of child care providers from local authority Social Service Departments to Ofsted in September 2001, childcare places were classified according to the type of day care provided: full day care, sessional day care, childminder, out of school day care or creche day care. Ofsted have produced figures based on this classification on a quarterly basis from March 2003. Their latest figures were published on 19 January 2005 in their report Registered Childcare Providers and Places, 31 December 2004", which is available on their website, www.ofsted.gov.uk/publications.
Up until March 2001, child care providers were classified according to the type of provider: day nurseries, playgroups and pre-schools, childminders, out of school clubs and holiday schemes. Figures based on this classification were published in a series of statistical bulletins, which are available from the Department's website, www.dfes.gov.uk/statistics.
The available information on nursery education places for Durham local authority area is shown in Table 3.
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(85) Rounded to the nearest 100 places.
(86) Sources:
Annual schools census and nursery education grant data collection exercise
(87) Annual schools census, nursery education grant data collection exercise and early years census.
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