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4 Feb 2008 : Column 919W—continued
Pre-School Education: Teachers
Annette Brooke: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families pursuant to the answer of 12 November 2007, on Pre-School Education: Teachers, what results emerged from the modelling undertaken by his Department to determine the demand for teachers, including those with experience and knowledge of the early years, in the period 2008 to 2011. [178695]
Jim Knight [holding answer 29 January 2008]: Our Teacher Supply Model takes account of a range of factors that determine how many teacher training places we need to set for future years. One of the most important is the number of pupils needing to be taught and our projections of these use data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). This shows an increase in births and a need for more teachers beyond 2009/10, so we have increased the targets given to the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) for teacher training places in the infant/primary phase. We will be revalidating these assumptions in 2009, based on the latest ONS data available, and will make any adjustments necessary. Another modelling exercise to forecast demand from 2011/12 to 2013/14 will begin in 2010.
The TDA has already allocated 1,760 places to training providers offering courses to those wishing to teach foundation stage and key stage 1 in each of the three years; an increase from 1,610 in 2007/08. It will allocate more places later to provide for the growth in 2009/10 and 2010/11 when there is better indication of regional and key stage demand.
Pupils : Personal Records
Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families with reference to the answer of 26 July 2007, Official Report, column 1397W, on pupils: personal records, what research is available on the family circumstances of a sample of pupils; and if he will make a statement. [166731]
Jim Knight: Information on the family circumstances of pupils has been gathered on a number of occasions when it has been directly relevant to the wider aims of a research study. There is no direct and simple way of establishing which research studies have gathered information on family circumstances and it would involve a disproportionate effort to do so, but as examples of the sort of information gathered, the London Challenge Parents questionnaire asked a sample of parents of 9 to 16-year-olds in London schools about home ownership, income, employment and number of people in the family, and the Youth Cohort study has regularly asked a national sample of 16 to 21-year-olds about their health, whether they looked after any other family members and whether they had any housing or family problems. The published reports of these and other individual studies are available through the Department's Research and Statistics Gateway on its website.
Runaway Children
Lynne Featherstone: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (1) what steps his Office has taken to provide (a) a network of refuge provision and (b) reintegration support for runaways under the age of 16 years since 2001; in how many local areas there is a named person to co-ordinate services for runaways; what progress has been made in reducing local variations in the provision of such services; and if he will make a statement; [183170]
(2) what percentage of young runaways were interviewed to identify and tackle their reasons for running away in 2007; and if he will make a statement. [183171]
Kevin Brennan: I agree that it is vital to ensure the safety and well-being of those children and young people who run away from home or care, and to tackle the underlying causes that lead to running away.
A report from the social exclusion unit (SEU) in 2002 identified the problems for young runaways and set out how the Government should respond, highlighting the importance of early intervention and prevention, and of integrating children’s services. These issues were addressed in the Every Child Matters Green Paper and the subsequent Change for Children programme. Last year, we commissioned the Children’s Society to assess how far these changes had in fact improved services for young runaways, and to identify what more needed to be done. We received their report “Stepping Up” in the autumn and, in response, we have established a cross-departmental working group on young runaways, to co-ordinate the Government’s work on young runaways.
The working group will develop an action plan on young runaways, to be published in June 2008, which will set out the necessary actions to improve services for young runaways, building on the principles set out in the “Stepping Up” report recommendations, and the recommendations made following the parliamentary panel hearings on young runaways in October 2007. The action plan will cover emergency accommodation provision, recognising the need for young runaways to have safe places or ‘breathing spaces’ to go to in a crisis, and the Missing from Home and Care guidance, to support local areas in delivering effective services for young runaways.
We do not currently collect data centrally on young runaways and the services they receive. A new indicator on young people who run away from home or care has been included in the National Indicator Set, to be measured from 2009. The working group will consider what data collections will best support this indicator, and their conclusions will be represented in the action plan.
Schools: Admissions
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many schools in Essex use a lottery system to allocate school places; and if he will make a statement. [178841]
Jim Knight:
We do not prescribe what policies individual admission authorities should use and therefore do not hold information centrally on the
number of schools using random allocation as part of their oversubscription criteria. The school admissions code allows schools to use a number of ways to allocate places if they are oversubscribed, including random allocation. This is not new—it has long been acceptable to use these criteria. Admission authorities are free to choose appropriate admission arrangements on the basis of local circumstances and parental demand, as long as they comply with the school admissions code and admissions legislation.
Schools: Firearms
Mr. Heath: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what guidance his Department has given to schools on contingency planning for firearms incidents on school premises. [178664]
Jim Knight: We have provided—at:
—guidance to schools which encourages and helps them develop emergency planning and response measures against floods and fire; it also provides links to other Government sources of advice on, for example, anti-terrorism. Schools can build on such measures for dealing with large-scale evacuation, on which we contributed to Cabinet Office guidelines, and with other contingencies. We have also produced, with the Home Office, “School Security: Dealing with Troublemakers and a Legal Toolkit”—at:
—which set out the law and good practice in such a way as to help schools cope with intruders, though they do not focus on dealing with armed intruders, nor pupils bringing in firearms.
We are working towards further guidance for schools on emergency planning and response, and will consider if and how this might cover the very rare incidents of firearms in schools.
Schools: Infectious Diseases
Bob Russell: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many identifiable outbreaks of infection were reported by schools in each of the last five years for which figures are available; what the infection was in each case; and if he will make a statement. [183175]
Jim Knight: The Department does not collect the information requested.
The Health Protection Agency (HPA) receives reports of outbreaks of illness in school from the Medical Officers of Schools Association (MOSA). This voluntary reporting scheme covers selected boarding schools only and it provides data on trends rather than estimates of national totals. Data for 2001 to 2006 are provided in Table 1.
Since 2004 the HPA has also been operating a national voluntary scheme for schools to report outbreaks and incidents: the National Incident Database. Data for outbreaks and their causes in 2006, the first year for which reliable figures are available, are in Table 2.
The HPA introduced the national Incident Reporting Information System (IRIS) to replace the National Incident Database with effect from 1 January 2007. 272 outbreaks were reported to IRIS in 2007. A detailed analysis has not yet been carried out.
| Table 1: MOSA school outbreaks reported to the Centre for Infections through the weekly illness surveillance scheme: 2000 to 2006 | ||||
| Type | ||||
| Gastro | Other | Respiratory | Total | |
| Notes: 1. Gastro: Gastrointestinal disease. Other: infectious mononucleosis, measles, rubella, chicken pox, herpes zoster, mumps, meningitis, hepatitis. Respiratory: upper respiratory tract infection, chest infection, influenza and flu-like illness. 2. There are approx 40 schools in the surveillance scheme. | ||||
| Table 2: Outbreaks of infectious diseases in schools reported to HPA (National Incident Database): 2006 | |
| Illness | Number of outbreaks |
Schools: York
Hugh Bayley: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what his Department's capital expenditure on schools in the city of York was in each financial year since 1996-97. [183490]
Jim Knight [holding answer 31 January 2008]: The Department's allocation of capital for schools in the city of York in each financial year since 1996-97 is set out in the following table. Actual expenditure in any year on schools may differ from this, due to expenditure timing differences and prioritisation at local level.
| £ million | |
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