| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
24 May 2007 : Column 1392W—continued
Children: Armed Forces
Mr. Harper: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what steps he is taking to improve the transfer of the (a) records and (b) special needs statements of service children with high mobility; and if he will make a statement. [138794]
Mr. Dhanda: Under The Education (Pupil Information) (England) Regulations 2005, when any pupil moves from one school to another the ‘old’ school must transfer the pupil’s common transfer file and education record within 15 school days of the child ceasing to be registered at the school. Where a pupil has special educational needs (SEN) the common transfer file will include the type of special educational provision that is being made.
For children with SEN statements who move between local authority areas there is a statutory process, set out in the SEN Code of Practice, for the old authority to transfer the statement to the new authority. The new authority must tell the parents within six weeks of the date of transfer when they will review the statement and whether they propose to reassess the child. Until such time as the new authority
amends the statement they are under a duty to arrange the special educational provision set out on the statement.
A new forum, the Service Children’s Education Forum, has been established, with representatives from this Department, the devolved administrations and the Ministry of Defence, to examine difficulties faced by Service children as they move in, or between, the different education authorities of the UK and between the UK and overseas. The forum is exploring a number of strands of work including those of mobility and continuity of SEN support. A Mitigating Mobility project led by the Service Children’s Education Agency is producing best practice guidance and the Service Children in State Schools Forum—an advisory group of schools in England with a high proportion of Service children—is contributing to this (and associated) work.
Education Maintenance Allowance
John Cummings: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many young people in Easington constituency received (a) £30, (b) £20 and (c) £10 in education maintenance allowance in each of the last three years. [135861]
Bill Rammell: This is a matter for the Learning and Skills Council, who operate the education maintenance allowance (EMA) for the DfES and hold the information about take-up and payments made under the scheme. Mark Haysom, the Council’s Chief Executive, has written to my hon. Friend with the information requested and a copy of his reply has been placed in the House Library.
Letter from Mark Haysom, dated 15 May 2007:
I am writing in response to your recent Parliamentary Question that asked:
“How many young people in Easington constituency have received (a) £30, (b) £20 and (c) £10 in educational maintenance allowance in each of the last three years.”
Information on the number of young people who have applied, enrolled and received education maintenance allowance (EMA) is available at local authority level, but not at constituency level. EMA take-up is defined as young people who have received one or more EMA payments in the academic year.
The following table shows EMA take-up data split by payment band for Durham local authority area during each academic year since the scheme’s inception.
| Take-up of EMA in each academic year | ||||
| Durham LA | ||||
| £30 | £20 | £10 | Total | |
I hope this information is useful and addresses your question.
Employment Schemes
Martin Horwood:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) how many starts on the Entry 2 Employment programme were contracted between the Learning and Skills Council and providers in each county in England for each of the last four years; how many starts there were in each county in each year; and
what the percentage difference is between the two figures in each case; [131647]
(2) when he will reply to Question 131647, on the Entry 2 Employment programme, tabled by the hon. Member for Cheltenham on 29 March 2007. [138729]
Jim Knight [holding answer 16 April 2007]: Data on Entry2Employment programme participants are collected on the Learning and Skills Council’s (LSC) Individualised Learner Record (ILR). The Entry2Employment programme was introduced in the work-based learning ILR collection for the first time in 2002/03 and figures are presented from that time.
The following table shows the number of starts on the Entry2Employment programme in each local Learning and Skills Council area—these data are not currently available by county.
We are unable to provide figures on the number of starts contracted between LSC and providers, and the difference between the number of actual and contracted starts, because data on contracted starts are not collected. Contracts are for places rather than starts; a provider may be contracted to fill 30 places but these 30 places may be filled by 70 or more young people during the year.
| Volume of E2E starts by local LSC area | |||
| 2003/04 | 2004/05 | 2005/06 | |
| Note: Numbers are rounded to the nearest 10. Source: Individualised Learner Record | |||
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |