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5 Jun 2007 : Column 369W—continued
Higher Education: Finance
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what estimate he has made of the amount of funding secured by universities from (a) charitable and (b) philanthropic sources in funding and improving universities. [140155]
Bill Rammell: The annual Ross Group survey suggests that higher education institutions raise approximately £200 million a year in donations from charitable and philanthropic sources. However, we will shortly be consulting higher education providers about the assessment of the current level of voluntary giving.
In February, the Government announced that they would provide £200 million over three years for a matched funding scheme to encourage additional charitable and philanthropic giving to higher education.
Nannies: Vetting
Miss McIntosh: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) what steps he is taking to ensure that any person named on the List 99, the Protection of Children Act list, the Protection of Vulnerable Adults list and the disqualification disorders regime is barred from (a) working as a nanny and (b) working in a nursery; [140278]
(2) if he will take steps to ensure that the same pre-employment vetting and checks are applied to nannies as to other child care workers; [140277]
(3) for what reasons a person does not have to undergo a Criminal Records Bureau check before taking up employment to work as a nanny; [140275]
(4) what communications campaign he has planned to advise parents of the vetting procedures and checks before a nanny commences employment; and what funds his Department is making available for this campaign; [140276]
(5) when he expects the planned communications campaign to advise parents of their responsibility for ensuring their children are safe while in the care of those they employ to look after them to begin. [140273]
Mr. Dhanda: Under the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 it is an offence for an individual disqualified from working with children, by means of listing upon the Protection of Children Act (PoCA) List or List 99, to work in a regulated child care position. A regulated child care position would include an individual working as a nanny.
The Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act which will be implemented from autumn 2008 provides the legislative framework to introduce a single list of those barred from working with children. This will replace List 99, the PoCA list, and the disqualification orders regime thus providing a more integrated system for vetting and barring. Individuals who are barred under the children's list will commit an offence if they seek to work as a nanny or in child care.
Those who employ an individual in a child care setting, such as a nursery, will commit an offence if they fail to check that their employee or a volunteer they use is a member of the vetting and barring scheme. An individual will need to become a member of the vetting and barring scheme before they seek work in a nursery.
While the SVG Act enables those employing people to work with children or vulnerable adults in domestic arrangements (e.g. nannies and care workers) to check the individual's status in the scheme, it does not place a ‘requirement’ to check status in the scheme on parents
using a nanny. Nor does it require nannies to become members of the new scheme. We believe it would not be appropriate or proportionate to regulate family life in this way and that parents are best placed to determine the suitability of nannies whom they are employing to work in their own home. We believe a sustained communications campaign to parents is preferable to a requirement, clearly explaining to parents their responsibility for ensuring their children are safe when they employ people to work with them, and setting out how the scheme can help them with this. It is likely that it will become desirable for those who work as nannies to become members of the scheme so that they may offer that reassurance to parents.
The Government have begun an extensive programme of communications, planned to culminate in summer to autumn 2008 with a campaign to ensure that all those subject to the requirements of the new vetting and barring scheme are aware of their responsibilities. There are many groups, organisations and individuals who need to know about the new scheme, so a range of ways of communicating nationally, regionally and locally will be used. Just one part of this task will be to work with parents’ groups, organisations involved in providing child care, child care professionals and others to raise parents' awareness of the opportunities afforded by the scheme. Further information on the scheme and details of a programme of information sessions already running across the country can be found at
Personal Social and Health Education
Sarah Teather: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many schools offer sex education or additional personal, social and health education as part of their extended hours provision. [140357]
Jim Knight [holding answer 4 June 2007]: The Department does not hold this information.
Pre-school Education: Teachers
Annette Brooke: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what recent representations he has received on local authority funding and provision of training for early years staff. [139275]
Beverley Hughes [holding answer 4 June 2007]: We have not received any specific recent representations about funding for training. We do, however, recognise the need for additional support in the run-up to the introduction of the Early Years Foundation Stage in September 2008. We have made £7 million available to local authorities through the Standards Fund and the General Sure Start Grant to fund additional training for early years staff in schools and private, voluntary and independent sector providers.
Annette Brooke: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many hours of training per early years worker he expects to be provided in England in the next 12 months. [139276]
Beverley Hughes [holding answer 4 June 2007]: We do not set our expectations for training in this way. However, over the next 12 months, we fully expect the early years work force to receive the training it requires to prepare for the introduction of the Early Years Foundation Stage in September 2008. To this end, we have recently made £7 million available to local authorities to fund training for early years workers in schools and private, voluntary and independent sector providers. This is additional to funding already available for training through the Transformation Fund, the General Sure Start Grant and the Standards Fund.
Pupils: Eating Disorders
Sarah Teather: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what assessment he has made of the impact of eating disorders on the academic achievement of children with such disorders. [139121]
Mr. Dhanda [holding answer 24 May 2007]: The Department for Education and Skills has not made a specific assessment of the impact of eating disorders on the academic achievement of children with such disorders.
Research shows that self-esteem and self-confidence have an impact on attainment. The 2001 DfES guidance, “Promoting Children’s Mental Health within Early Years and Schools Settings” emphasises the important role that schools can play in helping young people to develop confidence and self-esteem, manage the way in which they think about themselves, and thus contribute to ensuring they eat properly.
The promotion of physical health and emotional well-being already forms part of many DfES policies including the Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) curriculum, the National Healthy Schools Programme, the Improving Behaviour and Attendance Programme, and the Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL) curriculum materials. Schools tell us that such programmes have brought sustained improvement in behaviour and standards of work.
School Meals: Take-up
Mr. Moss: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what measures he plans to take in response to trends in secondary school meal take-up following the introduction of new standards for school food. [139765]
Mr. Dhanda: The Secretary of State has asked the School Food Trust, a non-departmental public body established by the DfES as its key delivery partner for school food, to develop a strategy to increase demand for school lunches by at least four percentage points by March 2008 and 10 percentage points by autumn 2009. These targets apply across the maintained sector.
The trust is taking forward a range of measures to help improve take-up. Examples include publication early in June of guidance to help schools improve the lunchtime experience. The guide provides recommendations and “top tips” on providing a positive meal experience for children, young people and schools. The trust has
also published guidance for schools and parents on the new standards for school food and has good practice case studies on its website.
Special Educational Needs: Dyspraxia
David Heyes: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many local education authorities in England and Wales have qualified specialists in dyspraxia; and whether the two local education authorities serving Ashton-under-Lyne constituency have specialists in this area. [139128]
Jim Knight [holding answer 4 June 2007]: This information is not collected centrally.
Teachers: Languages
Mr. Love: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what plans he has to provide more modern language teachers in primary schools. [139798]
Jim Knight: The Department is working with partner organisations to implement measures to support and train existing and new teachers to teach primary languages. We have trained over 2,000 new primary teachers with a languages specialism since 2002, and plan to train a further 1,000 each year until 2010—around 6,000 by 2010.
We have given additional funding to Specialist Language Colleges to work with local primary schools to build capacity and embed primary languages in the curriculum.
We published the Key Stage 2 Framework for languages in 2005, providing advice and guidance for both existing and new primary teachers, and have recently launched the Primary Languages Zone, an interactive website for teachers and school leaders implementing primary languages. CILT, the National Centre for Languages, is training regional primary languages trainers, and delivering a continuous professional development programme for primary teachers over the next year.
Justice
Belmarsh Prison: Computers
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice how many laptop computers are available for use by offenders in HMP Belmarsh. [139896]
Mr. Sutcliffe: I am informed that 41 laptop computers are currently available for use by prisoners at HMP Belmarsh.
Brixton Prison: Death
Mr. Bellingham: To ask the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice if she will initiate an official investigation into the recent deaths at HM Prison Brixton; and if she will make a statement. [139573]
Mr. Sutcliffe: All deaths in prison custody are subject to a police investigation, an independent investigation by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman and a coroner’s inquest before a jury.
Community Justice Centres: Public Appointments
Mr. Allen: To ask the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice pursuant to her letter of 20 April 2007 to the hon. Member for Nottingham, North, what discussions her officials have had with senior judiciary on how the community might be involved in the deployment of judges and magistrates to the new community justice initiatives; and if she will make a statement. [138976]
Ms Harman: It is important for the community to be involved in all aspects of community justice. Judicial deployment is the responsibility of the judiciary under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005. For magistrates, local people are involved in the advisory committees that make recommendations on appointments. For district judges, the final decision is taken by the judiciary after the district judge has met the community and has reported with the senior local official for the initiative to the presiding judges on whether the scheme will be workable. The district judge in Nottingham will be announced shortly.
Community Service Orders
Dr. Kumar: To ask the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of community sentences being used in place of custodial sentences of less than 12 months. [139803]
Mr. Sutcliffe: Reoffending rates for custodial and community sentences are published in “Re-offending of Adults: Results from the 2004 Cohort” (Home Office Statistical Bulletin 06/07). Figure 10 in this report suggests that community punishment orders and community punishment and rehabilitation orders may be more effective than prison sentences in reducing reoffending. Proven reoffending rates for all community sentences have been steadily improving since 2000 and now stand at 51 per cent. This compares with proven reoffending rates of over 70 per cent. for those given short custodial sentences, although the difference can be partially explained by differences in offender characteristics. However, only a limited range of offender characteristics are currently accounted for in the figures used. Further evidence that will explicitly investigate the effectiveness of sentencing will be provided by our current research programme. This includes a major study of sentencing that will provide more information about the relative effectiveness of sentencing than currently available from central statistics and reconviction studies.
Annette Brooke: To ask the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice what plans there are for multi-agency public protection arrangements to (a) promote public awareness and (b) provide access to advice for the public about the management of offenders in the community. [140387]
Mr. Sutcliffe:
In May 2006, the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) issued a national multi-agency public protection arrangements (MAPPA) communications strategy to each of the 42 MAPPA strategic management boards in England and Wales. The aim of the strategy, and the accompanying toolkit,
is to support MAPPA leads to promote MAPPA’s work locally, including with the general public. In addition, the national MAPPA guidance is being revised and reissued this year, and a new public information leaflet will accompany it. Finally, the Home Secretary last year commissioned a review into existing arrangements for managing child sex offenders in the community which looked at, among other things, how the arrangements might be strengthened and how information might be better shared with the public. The review is due to be published shortly.
Dartmoor Prison
Mr. Streeter: To ask the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice how many cells are unoccupied in HM Prison Dartmoor; and if she will make a statement. [139509]
Mr. Sutcliffe: At unlock on Thursday 31 May there were no unoccupied habitable cells at HMP Dartmoor.
Departments: Data Protection
Grant Shapps: To ask the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice how many times her Department and its predecessor were found to have been in breach of the Data Protection Act 1998 in each of the last five years; and if she will make a statement. [139216]
Vera Baird: The definition of “found to have been in breach” can be broad. Depending on their nature, breaches by my Department of the Data Protection Act 1998 can be dealt with by the Information Commissioner, the courts or by my Department at an informal local level. The information requested is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Dovegate Prison
John McDonnell: To ask the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice what the cost was to Her Majesty's Prison Service of the deployment of staff to HM Prison Dovegate from other establishments during the disturbance on 2 February. [139706]
Mr. Sutcliffe: There is no record of an incident occurring at Dovegate prison on 2 February. There is a record of a concerted indiscipline there on 29 January.
The approximate cost of staff salaries in deploying staff from other prisons to that incident is £18,405.60. This is based upon figures set out in the following table.
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