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20 Mar 2007 : Column 779W—continued
Day Care: Disabled
Mr. Gibb: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what funding his Department makes available to assist parents with the cost of child care for children with physical disabilities. [127933]
Beverley Hughes: Parents with disabled children can receive support through the working tax credit (which includes elements relating to disability and severe disability), child tax credit, disability living allowance and carer's allowance. They can also apply for direct payments from their local authority, which are cash payments in lieu of social care services enabling those receiving them to arrange their own services.
In addition, the Department for Education and Skills provides funding to local authorities through the general Sure Start grant to increase the sustainability and diversity of their local child care market, in support of the new duty in the Childcare Act 2006 to secure sufficient child care provision. This funding can be used to provide support for child care places where affordability is an issue for parents, and can also be used to provide training, enable early education and child care settings to make adaptations to premises and equipment, provide additional staff, and support multi-agency working through the early support programme.
Nursery Schools: Westminster
Ms Buck: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many (a) three and (b) four-year-olds are attending (i) nursery schools and (ii) classes in Westminster; and how many were attending in 1997. [126446]
Beverley Hughes: The requested information is given in the table.
| Maintained nursery and primary schools: number (headcount) of pupils aged 3 and 4( 1 ) Position in January each year: 1997 and 2006( ) Westminster local authority area | ||||||
| Maintained nursery schools | Maintained primary schools | |||||
| Pupils across all classes | Pupils in designated nursery classes | Pupils across all classes( 2) | ||||
| (1 )Excludes dually registered pupils. (2 )Includes pupils in designated nursery classes. (3 )Excludes rising fours. Includes pupils aged less than three. (4 )Excludes rising fives. Source: School Census | ||||||
Parents: Incapacity Benefit
Mr. Frank Field: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what percentage of pupils whose parents were claiming incapacity benefit achieved (a) more than five A* to C passes including English and mathematics, (b) more than five A* to C passes, (c) more than five A* to G passes and (d) no passes at Key Stage 4 in (i) the Birkenhead constituency, (ii) the Wirral local education authority and (iii) England in 2006. [127767]
Jim Knight [holding answer 15 March 2007]: Data on whether pupils’ parents claim incapacity benefit is not collected centrally.
Pupils: Attendance
Mr. Oaten: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many parents received custodial sentences for failing to make their children attend school in each of the last three years. [127531]
Jim Knight [holding answer 15 March 2007]: Home Office data, from the court proceedings database, show the number of defendants sentenced to immediate custody for offences under section 444 of the Education Act 1996 is as follows: 20 in 2005; 22 in 2004; and, seven in 2003. Data for 2006 are not available at this time.
Schools: Admissions
Mr. Lilley: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills whether under the school admissions code of practice local authorities can give precedence in the waiting list to pupils who have not been allocated a place at a ranked school over those who have been allocated a place at one of their ranked schools. [128857]
Jim Knight: Where a school maintains a waiting list, a child’s position on that list can be determined only by how well he or she meets the school’s published oversubscription criteria compared to others on the list. Any other information, such as other parental preferences, may not be taken in to account. The new school admissions code also states that a child cannot be given priority on a waiting list based on the date that his or her application was received or his or her name was added to the list.
The only children who may be given precedence over those on a waiting list are those who are the subject of a direction by the local authority to admit or those admitted in accordance with an in-year fair access protocol.
Volunteering: Young People
James Brokenshire: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what recent assessment he has made of the steps being taken to meet the recommendations of the Russell Commission on Youth Volunteering. [128266]
Edward Miliband: I have been asked to reply.
Considerable progress has been made over the past year since the launch of the Russell Commission Implementation Body, v, which has created over 80,000
volunteering opportunities and attracted pledges of over £20 million of match funding for the private sector in addition to the up to £100 million available from Government.
Home Department
Antisocial Behaviour Orders: Hertfordshire
Mike Penning: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many antisocial behaviour orders were issued by courts in (a) Hertfordshire and (b) Hemel Hempstead constituency in each quarter since the penalty was introduced; and what percentage of these were issued where the claimant was aged (i) 10 to 14 years, (ii) 15 to 19 years, (iii) 20 to 24 years, (iv) 25 to 29 years and (v) 30 years and over. [121181]
Mr. McNulty: Available information for Hertfordshire criminal justice system area is in the table, but ASBO data are not available at parliamentary constituency level.
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