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18 Apr 2006 : Column 184W—continued
Social Segregation Report
Paul Farrelly: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills pursuant to the Answer of 13 March 2006, Official Report, column 1880W, on the social segregation report, when she expects research work on social segregation in schools from the Centre of Economics of Education to be completed. [59870]
Jacqui Smith: This research work is due to be published on the Centre for the Economics of Education website http://cee.lse.ac.uk/ on Thursday 30 March.
Special Educational Needs
Mr. Marsden: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what proportion of children in England with a special educational need have been given more than one fixed-term exclusion from school in a year. [58943]
Maria Eagle: The requested information is given in the following table.
(46)Includes middle schools as deemed
(47)Excludes non-maintained special schools.
(48)Number of pupils with more than one fixed period exclusion by stage of SEN expressed as a percentage of the total number of pupils by same stage of SEN.
Notes:
Numbers have been rounded to the nearest 10. There may be discrepancies between the sum of constituent items and totals as shown.
Source:
Termly Exclusions Survey
Special Guardianship Orders
Mr. Kidney: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many special guardianship orders have been made since 30 December 2005, broken down by region. [60750]
Ms Harman: I have been asked to reply.
The number of Special Guardianship Orders made in the county courts (including the high court) up to the end of February 2006 is 25. They are broken down by region as follows:
| Region | Number |
|---|---|
| Eastern | 2 |
| London | 10 |
| Merseyside | 1 |
| North East | 1 |
| North West | 3 |
| South East | 3 |
| South West | 3 |
| Wales | 1 |
| West Midlands | 1 |
Statistical information on the same for Family Proceedings Courts is not recorded.
Student Loans
Peter Law: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what assessment she has made of the impact of interest payable on unpaid student loans on the ability of graduates to repay loans. [62314]
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Bill Rammell: Interest is only charged on student loans in line with inflation, which means no borrower pays back more in real terms than the value of the loan they took out. Borrowers repay loans at a fixed percentage of salary once their earnings reach the repayment threshold so fluctuations in the interest rate do not affect the monthly repayment amount.
David Simpson: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many graduates have still to start to repay student loans (a) in total and (b) in (i)England, (ii) Scotland, (iii) Wales and (iv) Northern Ireland. [57450]
Bill Rammell: This table shows student loan borrowers with mortgage-style loans who have not made any repayments up to 31 December 2005 and have passed their Statutory Repayment Due Date (SRDD). Borrowers are not required to repay before they reach the SRDD, which is the April after they graduate or otherwise leave their course. Mortgage-style borrowers who have passed their SRDD are able to apply for deferment of repayments if their income is below 85 per cent. of national average earnings, i.e. less than £24,137 per annum from 1 September 2005.
| Country of domicile | Mortgage-style borrowers passed SRDD who had not made any repayments, position at 31 December 2005 |
|---|---|
| England | 120,000 |
| Wales | 8,000 |
| Scotland | 24,000 |
| Northern Ireland | 7,000 |
| UK total | 159,000 |
Source:
Student Loans Company
The following table shows student loan borrowers with income-contingent loans who have not made any repayments before 31 March 2004, and had passed their SRDD by that date. At that time income-contingent borrowers who had passed the SRDD only made repayments when they were earning over £10,000. Since April 2005 this threshold has been increased to £15,000.
| Country of domicile | Income-contingent borrowers passed SRDD who had not made any repayments, position at 31 March 2004 |
|---|---|
| England | 332,000 |
| Wales | 22,000 |
| Scotland | 62,000 |
| Northern Ireland | 16,000 |
| UK total | 432,000 |
Source:
Student Loans Company
Complete information for more recent dates are not yet available due to the system of collection via the tax system and subsequent reporting to the Student Loans Company.
Superannuation Liability
Mr. Philip Hammond:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what total amount of employers'
18 Apr 2006 : Column 186W
normal contributions accruing superannuation liability charge has been accounted for by her Department in each of the last five years for which data are available. [61370]
Maria Eagle: The amount of employers' accruing superannuation liability charges in respect of members of the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme in the last five years is:
| £000 | |
|---|---|
| 2004–05(49) | 17,529,105 |
| 2003–04(49) | 17,455,539 |
| 2002–03(49) | 14,991,954 |
| 2001–02 | 12,793,713 |
| 2000–01 | 12,284,901 |
(49)From 1 October 2002 new entrants have been able to opt for a partnership pension partnership account, a stakeholder arrangement with an employer contribution. Employers' contributions to partnership pension accounts are not included in the figures in the table.
Tourette's Syndrome
Mr. Sheerman: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what steps her Department is taking to ensure that education professionals are trained to work with students with Tourette's syndrome. [58363]
Maria Eagle: We have a number of training programmes in place which aim to provide educational professionals with the necessary skills to enable them to make suitable provision for children with special educational needs (SEN), including those with Tourette's syndrome.
In order to be awarded Qualified Teacher Status (QTS), all trainee teachers must demonstrate that they understand their responsibilities under the statutory Special Educational Needs Code of Practice. They must show that they know how to seek advice from specialists, such as the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), if they are concerned about children's development or behaviour or about less common types of SEN, such as Tourette's Syndrome. They must also be able to differentiate their teaching to meet the needs of individual pupils including those with SEN.
All schools receive a School Development Grant which they are able to use to support improvement in any aspect of teaching and learning including training. Local authorities may retain a proportion of this grant to provide specific training and development programmes for staff in teaching children with SEN.
The Department has introduced the National Programme for Specialist Leaders in Behaviour and Attendance (NPSL-BA) which is giving teaching and non-teaching staff the status and qualification to lead colleagues in developing programmes for managing behaviour positively. The programme was piloted in 2004/05 and in now being extended nationally.
Truancy
Mr. Wallace:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what the truancy levels were in
18 Apr 2006 : Column 187W
schools in (a) Lancaster and Wyre constituency, (b) Lancashire and (c) England in each year since 1997. [61326]
Jacqui Smith: The Department does not hold data on the levels of truancy. However, the figures for the percentage of half days missed due to unauthorised absence (of which truancy forms a part) in maintained mainstream schools can be found in the table.
Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what steps the Government are taking to reduce truancy. [62985]
Jacqui Smith: I refer the hon. Member to the reply given on 9 November 2005, Official Report, column 623W.
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