| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
9 Oct 2006 : Column 113W—continued
A Childcare Salary Sacrifice scheme, which was introduced on 1 May 2006. This enables staff to make savings on tax and national insurance contributions by sacrificing part of their salary for child care vouchers which can then be used towards payment of pre-school child care and/or school age holiday child care support.
Departmental Contracts
Mrs. Maria Miller: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what the total value was of contracts his Department held with (a) ER Consultants and (b) Praesta in each of the last three years; and which Ministers have made use of each company’s services. [90908]
Phil Hope [holding answer 11 September 2006]: A complete answer to this question could be supplied only at disproportionate cost. I can tell the hon. Member, however, that the Department spent the following with ER Consultants over the last three financial years:
| £ | |
The Department also spent £8,800 with Praesta in 2005.
Departmental Publications
Mr. Weir: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what the (a) circulation, (b) cost and (c) title is of each publication his Department has issued since 1 July 2005. [89551]
Mr. Dhanda: The information requested has been placed in the House Libraries.
Departmental Staff (Bicycles)
Hywel Williams: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what tax efficient schemes for the purchase of bicycles his Department makes available to its employees; how many and what percentage of his Department’s staff purchased bicycles through such schemes in 2005-06; whether the schemes are available through a range of suppliers; and whether arrangements are made to enable staff with disabilities to purchase adapted bicycles from a specialist supplier. [90065]
Mr. Dhanda: The Department currently has no tax efficient schemes for bicycle purchase in place.
DG Education and Culture
Mr. Hayes: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will place in the Library the latest compendium providing budgetary breakdowns for projects funded by DG Education and Culture in the UK. [90525]
Bill Rammell: There are no recent printed compendia giving budgetary breakdowns of all DG Education and Culture funded projects. Directly funded Socrates (education) project budgets up to 2003 are on the European Commission website http://ec.europa.eu/education/programmes/socrates/socrates_en.html The very numerous smaller projects at national level funded through the National Agency are listed at www.socrates-uk.net Leonardo da Vinci (vocational training) projects up to 2005, both direct and funded through the National Agency, can be found at http://www.leonardo.org.uk/arounduk/index.htm There are no compendia for the Youth programme, or the Culture 2000 programme which is the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Tessa Jowell). The European Commission’s Executive Agency manages all the DG’s directly-funded projects and should be able to provide more information on request, (email: eacea-info@ec.europa.eu).
Disabled Students
Jessica Morden: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) how many disabled students have dropped out of higher education before completion of their course in the last five years; [90228]
(2) what information is collected on the number of disabled students dropping out of university. [90229]
Bill Rammell: The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) collects information on disabled students each year via the HESA Student record. Disability is determined in two ways: by a self-assessment on the part of the student, and by whether a student is in receipt of a Disabled Student Allowance.
HESA's Performance Indicators in Higher Education include the proportion of students in receipt of a Disabled Student Allowance, and the proportion of full-time first degree entrants who do not continue
in higher education after first year. Both of these are shown in the tables. However, there is no publicly-available information on non-completion rates specifically for disabled students. Using the data on which the PIs are based, the proportion of full-time first degree disabled students not continuing in HE after first year has been calculated for 2002-03 and 2003-04. These figures are also included in the tables.
| Percentage of full-time first degree students at UK institutions in receipt of disabled student allowance | |
| Percentage | |
| Source: Table T7, Performance Indicators in Higher Education, published by HESA | |
| Percentage of full-time first degree entrants to UK institutions not continuing in HE after their first year | |
| Percentage | |
| Source: Table T3, Performance Indicators in Higher Education, published by HESA | |
| Percentage of full-time first degree students to UK institutions who are in receipt of Disabled Student Allowance, not continuing in HE after their first year | |
| Percentage | |
| Source: HEFCE | |
Educational Premises
Mr. Weir: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many educational premises have been declared unfit for use since 1997. [89549]
Phil Hope: Information on the number of educational premises that have been declared unfit for use since 1997 is not held by the Department.
European Union Communications
Mr. Hayes: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many (a) decisions, (b) notifications, (c) communications, (d) directives and (e) European Court of Justice court rulings his Department received from the appropriate agencies in the period 25 June to 25 July 2006. [90541]
Mr. Dhanda:
During the period in question the Department received one Communication, on the follow up to the White Paper on European Youth, and
no notice of adoption of Decisions or Directives, or European Court of Justice rulings relating to its area of responsibility. A notification, in EU terms, applies to outgoing notification of proposed changes to technical regulations or of transposition of legislation. There have not been any such notifications relating to this Department.
In addition, during the period in question common positions have been reached on the Decisions to create the Lifelong Learning and Youth in Action programmes, which will run from 2007-13. A number of calls for proposals in the fields of education, skills and youth were also published in the Official Journal.
Excluded Children
Philip Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many children excluded from school were subsequently taken into local authority care in each of the last five years. [90087]
Jim Knight: The information requested is not collected centrally.
Extended Schools Programme
Mr. Holloway: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what assessment he has made of the extended schools programme in Gravesham. [92432]
Beverley Hughes: There are 75 schools in Kent delivering the extended schools full core offer of activities and of these four are primary schools in the constituency of Gravesham. These schools are offering childcare from 8am-6pm (where needed) all year round; a varied menu of study support activities; a range of specialist health and social care services; and are opening up facilities to the wider community.
Research from Ofsted and from the Universities of Manchester and Newcastle has shown that extended services can have a positive impact for children, improving behaviour, attendance and pupil achievement and helping to reduce exclusions. The first year evaluation of extended schools also showed that the services helped teachers refocus upon teaching and learning.
The expectation is that all schools will become extended schools by 2010. A good start has already been made with over 3,000 primary and secondary schools in England offering extended services, exceeding the Government’s aim of 2,500 extended schools by September 2006.
Foreign Teachers
Mr. Weir: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many foreign teachers, excluding language assistants, are working in maintained (a) primary and (b) secondary schools, broken down by (i) nationality and (ii) local authority area. [89548]
Jim Knight: The information requested is not collected centrally for England. Information for Scotland is a matter for the Scottish Executive.
The following table provides the number of foreign teachers recruited to the overseas trained teacher programme in each year from 2000/01 to 2004/05, the latest year for which full details are available.
| Recruitment to the overseas trained teacher scheme in England by phase, 2000/01 to 2004/05 | |||
| Primary | Secondary | Total | |
| Notes: 1. Teacher Development Agency (TDA) 2. Figures are rounded to the nearest10. | |||
Further Education (Over 55s)
David Simpson: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what assistance for (a) further education and (b) life long learning is available for people over 55 years of age who have (i) been made redundant and (ii) been redundant for more than one year. [89298]
Bill Rammell: Responsibility for encouraging redundant workers, including those aged over 55 and redundant for more than one year, back into employment, education or training is shared between the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and the Secretary of State for Education and Skills. Both Departments along with their respective agencies Jobcentre Plus (JCP) and the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) work closely together on large-scale redundancies to ensure that redundant employees have the skills they need to secure sustainable and productive jobs.
All those on jobseeker’s allowance or income related benefits and their dependants receive free tuition in further education. Unemployed people in England also have access to in-depth advice about their education and training options through the Learndirect one-stop telephone and on-line service.
In addition, we remain committed to supporting learning for its own intrinsic value and have established a safeguarded budget of £210 million pa for 2006/07 and 2007/08 for learning for personal and community development. Over half the participants on these courses are aged over 55.
Further Education (Pensioners)
Mr. Dunne: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many pensioners in (a) England and (b) each local authority took advantage of the concession for subsidised further education courses in (i) 2004-05 and (ii) 2005-06. [91696]
Bill Rammell:
There is no national subsidy for pensioners on courses in further education funded through the Learning and Skills Council. However all those on income related benefits and their families do not pay tuition fees for their courses. This includes those pensioners in receipt of the pension credit guarantee. Many pensioners will also benefit from free tuition for courses in literacy, numeracy and language and, where they intend to work, from free tuition for a
first full level 2 qualification. Beyond national policy many providers, in both local authorities and FE colleges, have offered fee concessions at their own discretion which may, to varying degrees, be based on age. The following table therefore shows the numbers of learning aims funded by the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) in 2004/05 and taken up by learners of State Pension Age, i.e. 65 for men and 60 for women, where fees are waived for whatever reason. Figures are in terms of aims, of which an individual learner may have several, because fee remission applies to individual aims rather than the learner. Additionally, where fees are paid in full by the learner, 75 per cent. of the total tuition cost in 2004/05 for learners in Further Education was still funded by the LSC.
Equivalent figures for 2005/06 will not be available until December 2006.
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |