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10 May 2006 : Column 252W—continued
www.civilservice.gov.uk/management/statistics/employment/index.asp.
My Department was formed in 2001. The median pay for (i) women and (ii) men in my Department in (A) 2001 and (B) 2006 is shown in the following table.
| £ | ||
| Women | Men | |
| Note: The median pay in this table is gross salary rounded to the nearest 10 and includes London and national salaries. For part time staff, the full time equivalent salary has been used. |
Women's median pay is 90.6 per cent. of men's median pay.
The number of (1) women and (2) men employed by my Department in each of the last five years, broken down by grade level, is shown in the following table.
| 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | ||||||
| Grade level | Women | Men | Women | Men | Women | Men | Women | Men | Women | Men |
| Note: Figures are based on a headcount of all staff. |
Departmental Websites
Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will list (a) the websites operated by his Department and (b) the reports placed on the internet in March 2006, indicating in each case whether paper copies were also made available. [65208]
Mr. Dhanda: The Department runs the following main URL domains:
dfes.gov.uk
milleniumvolunteers.gov.uk
everychildmatters.gov.uk
childcarecareers.gov.uk
childrights.gov.uk
connexions.gov.uk
connexionsonline.gov.uk
connexions-direct.com
need2know.co.uk
surestart.gov.uk
parentscentre.gov.uk
sendist.gov.uk
teachernet.gov.uk
governornet.co.uk
writehere.org.uk
fasttrackteaching.gov.uk
schoolsadjudicator.gov.uk
foundationdegree.org.uk
admissions-review.org.uk
hestrategy.org.uk
successforall.gov.uk
kingsmillreview.gov.uk
bsf.gov.uk
musicmanifesto.gov.uk
schoolsfoodtrust.co.uk
Note that these include a number of cross-Whitehall websites which the Department runs on behalf of Department collaborations. Also note that this list excludes web addresses that are run by Non-departmental Public bodies, Department agencies or which are redirected to those listed above.
The Department does not keep a list of the reports placed online by month. This is because the technical infrastructure to enable the Department to do so is not yet in place. However, the capability of determining a list of reports placed on the website by month for all Department websites will be delivered over 2007/08.
The majority of reports are available in print form, and placed on the website in a PDF format.
Disabled People
Tom Levitt: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what progress his Department has made in fulfilling its statutory role as a public body to promote the rights of disabled people. [65815]
Mr. Dhanda: The Department is fully committed to equality and diversity. The Disability Discrimination Act 2005 places new duties on public authorities to promote equality for disabled people, ‘the Disability Equality Duty.’
Through the Act, we, like many public bodies, have an obligation to publish a Disability Equality Scheme every three years. Our Equality and Diversity Unit has begun work on the Department's first scheme, to be published later this year. Policy officials will be undertaking a full departmental-wide examination of our policies and functions in relation to disability and other equality issues. Action plans will be produced to address all issues and these will be monitored and reviewed through the annual business planning process. The scheme will be published on the Department's website. This information will contribute towards preparations for the Secretary of State's report on progress, due in December 2008. My Department has also provided support on implementing the new duties to a number of other public authorities including schools and other public bodies. Further information on this and other support is shown as follows.
Examples of DfES support for other authorities include:
The Department for Education and Skills is holding a series of events in May and June to launch the new resource “Implementing the Disability Discrimination Act in schools and early years settings” to help schools and local authorities implement the reasonable adjustments duty and planning duty they have under Part 4 of the Disability Discrimination Act by providing:
An explanation of the DDA duties and their relationship to the statutory SEN framework;
a DVD resource filmed in over 40 schools illustrating how schools have made reasonable adjustments to prevent discrimination against disabled pupils and increase their access to education; plus supporting written materials;
templates for schools and local authorities to use in reviewing and revising their statutory accessibility plans;
guidance for local authorities on increasing access to early years settings for very young disabled children.
The resource will help schools and local authorities to make adjustments for their disabled pupils both in the short and longer term by improving access to all aspects of school life. The guidance identifies how schools and local authorities' access planning arrangements will help compliance with the Disability Equality Duty.
The Disability Rights Commission will give a presentation at the events providing an overview of the duties schools and local authorities will have under the Disability Equality Duty. They will also make participants aware of the sixth section that will be added to the resource in the autumn as part of the non statutory guidance being developed for schools by the Disability Rights Commission on the new Disability Equality Duty.
DfES's work with DRC/LSC/FE/HE in preparing for implementation of the new disability duty:
DfES has been participating in a series of round-table workshops over the past year with the Disability Rights Commission (DRC), Learning and Skills Council, Higher Education Funding Council for England and external partners in the Further and Higher Education sectors, to prepare for the forthcoming public sector duty to promote disability equality. DRC plans to publish guidance for the FHE sector in May.
LSC's existing statutory duty to promote disability equality:
Section 14 of the Learning and Skills Act 2000, requires the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), in carrying out all of its functions, to have due regard to the promotion of equality of opportunity in terms of disability, race and gender. In addition, section 13 requires the LSC to pay particular regard to the needs of young people and adults with learning difficulties and disabilities, when performing its duties to secure facilities and provide resources for education and training.
DfES are working with the LSC to run an equalities impact assessment across the skills strategy programme. This will include disability. We aim to complete this by the end of October 2006.
Educational Psychology
Mr. Pope: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills when he will publish the report of the fundamental review of the function of educational psychologists announced in February 2005. [69688]
Mr. Dhanda: The research contract for the review of the functions and contribution of educational psychologists in England and Wales was awarded to a research team from the School of Education, University of Manchester.
The research team expect to deliver their report to the Department later this month. A date for publication will be determined once we have had the opportunity to consider the report.
Mr. Sheerman: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) how many educational psychologist posts are unfilled; and what estimate he has made of the likely ratio of trained educational psychologists to posts over the next five years; [69582]
(2) many educational psychologists have been trained in England in each of the past 10 years; and what the cost of their training was in each year; [69583]
(3) what recent discussions he has had with the British Psychological Society on the funding of the training of educational and clinical psychologists; [69584]
(4) what the cost to his Department of the training of an educational psychologist (a) was in 2005 and (b) is expected to be in each of the next three years; [69585]
(5) what steps he has taken to ensure that local authorities provide sufficient resources for the training of educational psychologists. [69586]
Mr. Dhanda: The full-time equivalent number of educational psychologists in post in local authorities in England as at January 2005 is 2,156, compared to 1,768 in January 1997. There were 100 vacant full-time permanent posts as at January 2005.
Educational psychologists are employed by local authorities and it is for those authorities to determine how many to employ in light of their assessment of local needs and available resources, and to plan for future needs. The Department makes no manpower planning estimates for this group of local employees, nor do we collect centrally information on the number of EPs trained or the cost of EP training, funding for which is not provided by DfES.
There have been no recent discussions between the Department and the British Psychological Society on funding of EP training. Questions relating to clinical psychologists are for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Heath.
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