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19 July 2006 : Column 456W—continued
Mrs. Maria Miller: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) what the total budget is in 2006-07 for the free (a) nursery, (b) playgroup and (c) day-care provision for three and four-year-olds; [86391]
(2) what average funding his Department provided per head to local authorities for free (a) nursery, (b) playgroup and (c) day-care provision for three and four-year-olds in 2005-06. [86392]
Beverley Hughes:
For 2005-06, funding for children under five within the total of Schools Formula Spending Shares (FSS) was £2,886 million and the average unit of funding was £3,220 across all settings.
From 2006-07, Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) replaced Schools FSS: £82 million was added to the total of DSG for 2006-07 to fund the expansion of the early years entitlement from 33 weeks to 38 weeks per year. Funding for under fives is not identified separately within DSG, and there is a single guaranteed unit of funding for each authority, the average of which is £3,640.
Extended Hours
Sarah Teather: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) how many (a) primary and (b) secondary schools have indicated they intend to operate extended hours from the start of the 2006 autumn term in (i) each London borough and (ii) each region of England; [86158]
(2) how many (a) primary and (b) secondary schools in each London borough operate extended hours; [86156]
(3) how many (a) primary and (b) secondary schools operate extended hours in each region of England; [86157]
(4) what guidance he has issued to schools on the charges they can make to pupils for attending extended school hours. [86430]
Beverley Hughes [holding answer 18 July 2006]: We have a target for 2,500 schools to be providing a core offer of extended services by September 2006. This includes access to a varied menu of activities, parenting support, childcare 8am to 6pm, swift and easy referral to specialist services and wider community access. Currently, we have over 9,000 schools engaged with their local authority on the extended schools agenda with a representative split of primary and secondary schools. This is encouraging progress against our September target. We do not currently have data on the total number of schools operating extended hours broken down by borough or region. However, we do have data from a baseline survey of maintained schools published in September 2005. This survey showed that 61 per cent. of secondary schools and 40 per cent. of primary schools offer childcare or activities before school. The survey suggested that more schools offered activities after school hours—a total of 87 per cent. of primary, and 95 per cent. of secondary schools. In future we will be able to draw on data from the school census, which will include information about the extended services that schools are providing.
This Government have published guidance for schools and local authorities on planning and funding extended schools, including charging for extended opportunities, on 5 June 2006. It is intended to help schools plan and fund their extended opportunities in ways that will best support children, young people and their families; reflect local needs and circumstances; and build on existing provision offered by the voluntary and private sectors.
The guidance includes advice on what schools may and may not legally charge for. It describes some typical extended activities and how they might be funded. The guidance emphasises the need for schools to ensure free access to extended activities for the most disadvantaged children and young people.
Institutes of Enterprise
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how much was spent in each year since 1998 to encourage Institutes of Enterprise; how many new institutes were endowed in each year; how many students attended institutes in each year; and if he will make a statement. [85553]
Jim Fitzpatrick: I have been asked to reply.
Science Enterprise Centres (SECs)—sometimes known as Institutes of Enterprise—were created under the Science Enterprise Challenge Programme. The first round, which covered the academic years 1999/2000 and 2000/01, allocated £28,900,000 to fund the creation of 12 SECs across the UK. The second round, for academic years 2001/02, 2002/03, awarded £14,500,000, as continuation funding to six of the existing SECs and to create one further SEC, brining the total number of SECs to 13.
Student attendance for the four years of the Science Enterprise Challenge Programme is as follows(1):
| Number | |
| (1) One of the SECs reported its student numbers as a percentage of the total student body, rather than as an absolute figure, these percentage figures are not included in the above totals. | |
After 2003 enterprise education became a devolved matter and, in England, was subsumed into the Higher Education Innovation Fund, under which individual HEIs have the choice where to focus their activities.
Language Learning
Mr. Graham Stuart: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) how many GCSE pupils in (a) England and (b) the East Riding of Yorkshire studied a foreign language in each of the last nine years; and if he will make a statement; [81445]
(2) how many A-level pupils in (a) England and (b) the East Riding of Yorkshire studied a foreign language in each of the last nine years; and if he will make a statement. [81446]
Jim Knight: Figures for the number of pupils who were entered for a GCSE foreign language in (a) England and (b) East Riding of Yorkshire in each of the last nine years are given in the following table.
| 15-year-old pupils( 1) entered for a GCSE foreign language( 2) | ||
| Number | ||
| England | East Riding of Yorkshire | |
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