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7 Jan 2008 : Column 236W—continued
Pupils: English Language
Mrs. Maria Miller: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many children of school age there are who are bilingual learners or have English as a second language, in each local authority. [174864]
Jim Knight [holding answer 17 December 2007]: The available information has been placed in the Library. This can be found in SFR 30/2007 “Schools and Pupils in England: January 2007 (Final)” which is available on the Department’s website here:
The table shows pupils by first language status; information on bilingual learners is not collected.
Pupils: Sight Impaired
Mr. Gibb: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families in what formats educational material for visually impaired and dyslexic children are provided by his Department; how much has been allocated for provision of such material; and if he will make a statement. [174336]
Jim Knight:
Local authorities and schools are funded to provide services for children with special educational needs (SEN). It is for local authorities and schools to determine how best to use resources to overcome barriers to achievement—including the provision of educational material in alternative formats where that is appropriate. The Education Act 1996 requires local
authorities, schools and early years settings to have regard to the SEN Code of Practice which provides advice on carrying out statutory duties to identify, assess and make provision for pupils' special educational needs.
Part 4 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 requires schools and local authorities to plan to improve access to the curriculum and written materials for disabled pupils over time. In addition, the new Disability Equality Duty introduced by the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 requires all public bodies including schools and local authorities to promote disability equality more widely.
The Department does not generally provide educational materials to children. However, we are currently working with a range of stakeholders including the RNIB and British Dyslexia Association, to look at ways of improving the provision of books and educational material in accessible formats.
School Leaving: Newcastle
Mr. Henderson: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families if he will make an assessment of the likely costs to the Newcastle local education authority of raising the school leaving age to 18. [174133]
Jim Knight: The estimated costs of raising the participation age were set out in the regulatory impact assessment (RIA) published alongside the Education and Skills Bill on 29 November 2007. Costs were projected to be around £800 million per cohort of young people but the economic benefits were estimated to be around £2,400 million on the same basis.
and I have placed a copy in the Library of the House.
The Department has not made detailed economic projections at a local level. Demographic changes will vary between local areas, of course, as will the nature of demand from young people, and local authorities will need to use their own projections to plan accordingly.
The proposed legislation is for the education and training leaving age, not the school leaving age, to be raised to 18 years. This will be done in two stages, with the participation age not being raised to 18 until 2015.
Schools
Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many competitions for new schools were won by (a) academies, (b) local authority schools and (c) other schools in each month since January 2006; and if he will make a statement. [167782]
Jim Knight: The following table shows the number of competitions won, in each month, by proposals for new academies and schools proposed by local authorities (LAs):
| Decision date | Competition | Winning school proposal | |
| Academy | LA maintained school | ||
| (1) Community school. | |||
There were no school competitions decided in 2006. The Lincolnshire and Southampton competitions were decided by the local authorities since they had not entered proposals of their own into the competitions; the Haringey competition was decided by the Schools Adjudicator.
A further four competitions are currently in progress in Salford, Devon, West Sussex and Cambridgeshire.
Schools: Finance
Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how much deprivation-related funding is allocated to each school in Somerset; and if he will make a statement. [175152]
Jim Knight: Somerset’s total Dedicated Schools Grant allocation for 2007-08 was £253.489 million: the amount of deprivation funding within this was 7.8 per cent. or £19.642 million. Somerset distributed £11.785 million or 60 per cent. of this deprivation funding through its formula on the basis of deprivation factors. Figures for each school in Somerset could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Science: Teachers
Michael Gove: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many and what proportion of science teachers in (a) primary schools and (b) secondary schools have a GCSE science qualification at grade C or above. [174222]
Jim Knight: The information requested is not collected centrally.
Information on the number of full-time teachers in service in secondary schools by the highest post-A-level qualification in the subject they teach is available from the Secondary School Curriculum and Staffing Survey (SSCSS), an occasional sample survey last conducted in 2002 and 2007. 2007 figures are expected to be published in spring 2008.
The following table provides the number of teachers teaching each subject area and the level of qualification in that subject in 2002, the latest information available.
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