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1 Feb 2006 : Column 502W—continued
School Milk (Shropshire)
Daniel Kawczynski: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what subsidies her Department has provided for primary schools in Shrewsbury constituency for daily school milk; and if she will make a statement. [44976]
Jim Knight: I have been asked to reply.
The EU funds a scheme which subsidises the provision of milk to primary and nursery schools. In England the Government supplements the EU subsidy for primary schools by payment of an annual maximum of £1.5 million in national aid. Participation in the subsidy scheme, which is administered by the Rural Payments Agency, is entirely a matter for schools or local education authorities. Shropshire county council is on the Agency's register of subsidy claimants.
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Sure Start
Mr. Paul Goodman: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills which (a) private, (b) voluntary and (c) public sector organisations delivered services in Sure Start programmes in each year for which figures are available. [43842]
Beverley Hughes: Services in Sure Start programmes have been delivered by organisations from a range of sectors, for example, voluntary and community sector organisations, such as community development trusts, statutory partners, including local authorities and health authorities, and some private companies. Information on the extent to which individual organisations are involved is not collected centrally.
Training Schemes
Michael Gove: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what steps she has taken to aid the provision of training schemes for Surrey Heath residents over 50 years old. [39769]
Phil Hope: We are committed to safeguarding a wide range of adult learning opportunities in every area, including provision for learners over 50, and we will ensure that adult learning provision in Surrey Heath is provided through the funding from the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) to further education colleges, local authorities and other providers. As this is an operational matter, Mark Haysom, the LSC's Chief Executive has written to the hon. Member with further information and a copy of his reply will be placed in the House Library.
Letter from Mark Haysom, dated 23 January 2006:
I refer to the written reply by Phil Hope to your Parliamentary Question. The Minister has asked that I write to you with further information.
Adult and Community Learning (now called Personal and Community Development Learning) is an important source of provision for older people. We are safeguarding funding for this provision for future years.
For other forms of provision, the LSC has agreed clear funding priorities with the Government as public resources are necessarily finite. Our highest priorities are to support increased participation and achievement of 16–18 year olds and to support adults without skills for life and full level 2 qualifications which are important for basic levels of employability. Many older people come within these latter priority categories and around a quarter of enrolments in LSC funded provision in Surrey are by people over the age of 50.
Surrey County Council, our Adult and Community Learning provider in the county, has developed provision for older people in two communities with high levels of multiple deprivation, one of which is in Surrey Heath. Building on earlier work by the Pre-Retirement Association, the purpose of these was to develop a transferable and innovative curriculum of recreational learning to encourage older people to regard learning and skills acquisition as a positive and natural accompaniment to growing older. Amongst other things, this led to the formation of an 'older and bolder club1 for health activities and recreation. The University of the Third Age has a presence in Surrey Heath to encourage lifelong learning for older people not in employment and relevant courses are also delivered by the WEA (with funding from the LSC.)
To help shape future provision, the Surrey Lifelong Learning Partnership has run focus groups on our behalf, involving older learners, to identify provision of particular interest. Analysis of needs against provision on a geographic basis means that we can now identify where there is relatively high and low participation in learning for over 50s to provide a basis for review of future provision.
Our future provision in Surrey will also be influenced by our South East Region's annual statement of planning priorities in which we have a commitment to pilot curriculum opportunities for older workers to change their occupations or extend their careers". To this end, we are developing a project, with European funding support, to identify different ways of delivering learning to older people. This will include targeted information, advice and guidance and the development of courses specifically to meet the needs of older people seeking to extend their careers.
Looking further forward, demographic changes—with fewer young people entering the labour market and an expectation of longer working life—mean that, nationally, we will need to provide a broader programme of support for older people to keep their skills up to date. We will be working with the Department for Education and Skills to define and plan the nature of this broader support.
Work Experience
Mr. Stephen O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many Key Stage 3 pupils undertook work experience in each year between 1995 and 2005, broken down by year group; and in which sectors. [25127]
Jacqui Smith: We have no figures for the period 1995 to April 2001. From April 2001, the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) took on the delivery responsibility for links between schools and businesses. Mark Haysom, the LSC's chief executive has written to my hon. Friend and a copy of his reply has been placed in the House Library.
Letter from Mark Haysom, dated 22 December 2005:
Further to your question to the Secretary of State for Education and Skills requesting the number of Key Stage 3 pupils who under-took work-experience placements between 1995 and 2005.
The Learning and Skills Council (LSC) collects data for work-experience placements for Key Stage pupils in Years 10 and 11. It does not collect information on Key Stage 3 students as part of the LSC Education Business Link funded activity.
Work-based Learning
Mr. Davey: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what funding has been allocated to work-based learning in (a) 2005–06, (b) 2006–07 and (c) 2007–08 for (i) 16 to 19-year-olds and (ii) 19 years plus at (A) Level 1, (B) Level 2 and (C) Level 3. [33349]
Bill Rammell: The Learning and Skills Council (LSC) is funded by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) through an annual Grant Letter that sets out the LSC's key priorities. The operational delivery of individual programmes, taking account of these priorities and the funding made available by the Department, is a matter for the LSC. The following table details the allocations for work based learning programmes for the relevant financial years. In addition funding allocations are given for the adult skills programme Train to Gain.
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Data for allocations to programmes by qualification level are the responsibility of the LSC and the council's Chief Executive Mark Haysom has written to the hon. Member with the information requested and a copy of his reply has been placed in the House Library.
Letter from Mark Haysom, dated 21 December 2005:
I write in response to your recent Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Education and Skills regarding funds allocated to Work-based Learning (WBL) in the three years from 2005–06 to 2007–08, for qualification levels 1, 2 and 3.
I need to begin by pointing out that the Learning and Skills Council does not allocate funding on the basis of qualification levels. We allocate funds to providers based on locally agreed provider development plans. These reflect a sound assessment of local employer, sector and individual needs, as well as Government policy, priorities and targets.
We afford our local teams considerable flexibility to move funds around to meet specific needs, hence we cannot say with certainty at this time, how much will be spent at each learning 'Level' for the years in question.
We do however gather information that enables us to see how much has been spent on the various elements of the WBL programme. For the most recently completed academic year, 2004/05, we know that the amounts were:
£344 million for Advanced Apprenticeships, which are geared towards the achievement of a Level 3 qualification;
in addition, some £45 million of our WBL programme budget was spent on training towards NVQs only (Levels 1–4)
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