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Mrs. Maria Miller: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what criteria providers must fulfil to gain access to funding from the local authority child care sustainability grant; and how much from the grant has been allocated to (a) maintained child care settings and (b) private, voluntary and independent child care providers in each local authority since its inception. [199898]
Beverley Hughes: The Memorandum of Grant which sets out the funding and payment arrangements for the Sure Start, early years and child care grant makes it clear to local authorities that a key objective of the grant is to support child care sufficiency and access, and contains brief guidance on activities that the funding is intended to help.
Local authorities have considerable discretion in choosing which child care providers to help in the light of local circumstances, and the “Securing Sufficient Childcare” statutory guidance contains some specific examples of situations in which they should consider making financial support available to providers.
The Department does not collect information on the allocations of funding from local authorities to individual child care providers within their areas.
Mrs. Maria Miller: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what the average level of funding given by each local authority to (a) private, voluntary and independent nurseries, (b) maintained childcare settings and (c) childminders in order to provide 2.5 hours of childcare a day was in each of the last five years. [200067]
Beverley Hughes: Funding for nursery education provision is provided for local authorities through the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG). Local authorities—in consultation with their School Forums—are responsible for determining the level of funding for early years providers in all sectors delivering the free early education entitlement.
The Department published local authorities’ estimates of the average per pupil amount allocated by local authorities to maintained providers and to private, voluntary and independent sector providers for delivery of the free entitlement early years provision in August 2007. The Free Entitlement to Early Years Provision Table for 2007-08 can be found on the DCSF website at
Children: Injuries
Frank Dobson: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families if he will take steps to establish inter-agency co-operation on a common system for child injury (a) surveillance and (b) data capture and storage; and if he will make a statement. [193921]
Kevin Brennan: The Department has worked across Government to co-ordinate the cross-Government Staying Safe Action Plan which was published on 5 February 2008. The report can be downloaded from www.ecm.gov.uk/stayingsafe and a copy is available in the House Library. Delivery of the action plan will be underpinned by the new Public Service Agreement to improve children and young people’s safety, which includes an indicator measuring emergency hospital admissions caused by unintentional and deliberate injuries to children aged up to 18 years. The same indicator is included in the new National Indicator Set for Local Government, so data will also be collected at local level. This indicator will help us to assess the extent of accidental injuries to children and young people. In the Staying Safe: Action Plan, we set out new a commitment to carry out a priority review of local area accident prevention, which will make a number of recommendations about how accident prevention work might be improved. I will ensure that both other Departments and external stakeholders are involved in this review.
Children: Mental Health
Margaret Moran:
To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what assessment he has made of the effects of implementation of section 120 of
the Adoption and Children Act 2002 on the care and supervision of children who have suffered impairment as a result of witnessing domestic violence. [188951]
Kevin Brennan: For private law child proceedings when parents come to court for an order to determine the child's primary residence or the frequency of contact with a non-resident parent, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) introduced a new process in 2005. This means that when making an application for a child contact/residence order, allegations of domestic violence are expected to be raised at the point of the application. Courts are now required to consider whether any incidents of domestic violence—not just from direct violence but also witnessing violence—have had an adverse impact on the child, or might affect the child in the future.
An evaluation of this new system was commissioned by the MOJ. The report, ‘Domestic Violence and the Supplemental Information Form C1A: evaluation of the use and effects of the introduction of the form into the Family Courts’ was published on 11 December 2007 [MoJ 17/07]. It confirmed that the new arrangements are providing an improved mechanism that enables domestic violence and associated harm to parents and children to be recognised at an early point in proceedings.
In public law child proceedings where local authorities apply for care or supervision orders, domestic violence concerns are a feature of about 50 per cent. of cases, though there is usually a range of other concerns, such as child abuse and alcohol or substance misuse.
Children: Video Games
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what steps the Government plan to take to protect children from unsuitable and offensive computer games. [198542]
Mr. Sutcliffe [holding answer 3 April 2008]: I have been asked to reply
Children are already protected from unsuitable material in computer games by classification systems. Material which is grossly violent or sexual must be classified by the British Board of Film Classification, and it is an offence to supply it to someone who does not meet the age requirement.
Additionally, as part of her review on harmful internet content and games Dr. Tanya Byron has made some recommendations on measures that strengthen these arrangements. She proposes lowering the statutory requirement to classify video games to 12+, so that it is the same as film classification and easier for
parents to understand; issuing clear and consistent guidance for industry on how games should be advertised and challenging industry to provide sustained and high profile efforts to increase parents’ understanding of age ratings and improved parental controls.
Dr. Byron is clear that before any changes are implemented, there is a need for a consultation exercise on what exactly the changes should be. Government are committed to that public consultation, and there will be a chance for everyone to contribute once the consultation is under way.
Citizenship: Curriculum
Mr. Paul Goodman: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what percentage of schools were judged by Ofsted to have adequate citizenship teaching in each year from 2003 to 2007. [197560]
Jim Knight: This is a matter for Ofsted. HM Chief Inspector Christine Gilbert has written to the hon. Member, and a copy of her reply has been placed in the Library.
Letter from Christine Gilbert, dated 2 April 2008:
Your recent parliamentary question has been passed to me, as Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, for reply.
Between 2002 and 2005 in secondary schools and between 2003 and 2005 in primary schools, inspectors made an overall judgement about the quality of teaching in citizenship. These judgements were made using a seven point scale: excellent, very good, good, satisfactory, unsatisfactory, poor and very poor. The information is presented in the table attached.
From September 2005, Ofsted stopped specific subject reporting in Section 5 school inspections. Since then, Ofsted has inspected citizenship in a sample of schools. In the lessons observed that were mainly focused on citizenship objectives, teaching was generally good. Often, however, this was because of the good generic skills of teachers and there were weaknesses in specialist aspects of teaching such as dealing with topical and controversial issues. In some schools, the benefits of specialist training were apparent in the quality of the teaching. In approaching one in five of the schools, teaching was unsatisfactory, with weak subject knowledge evident. Important aspects of teaching citizenship, such as discussion, were limited. Sometimes teachers made links from other subjects to citizenship that were insubstantial and failed to add up to a sensible curriculum overall. In some of the schools where teaching was weaker, this was because it was taught by large non-specialist teams; and in some of these schools a decision had been made to move to greater specialism.
A copy of this reply has been sent to Jim Knight MP, Minister of State for Schools and Learners, and will be placed in the library of both Houses.
Commonwealth Youth Ministerial Meeting
Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what ministerial presence there will be at the Commonwealth Youth Ministerial meeting in Sri Lanka. [200193]
Beverley Hughes: No UK Minister is able to attend the Commonwealth Youth Ministers' Conference in Sri Lanka this month. The UK delegation will be headed by Gordon Blakely, Director, Youth, British Council.
Departmental Advertising
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families which of his Department's initiatives and those of its predecessor were advertised to the public in each of the last 10 years; and what the cost of each such campaign was in each year. [192232]
Kevin Brennan: Promotional campaigns, including those using advertising, are funded from the Department's central Advertising and Publicity Budget and from individual programme budgets held by policy directorates.
Government policies and programmes affect the lives of millions of people and in order for them to work they must be communicated effectively. But that also has to be done with cost efficiency in mind and there are strict rules to ensure value for money on Government advertising.
Spend on advertising on departmental initiatives since 2002/03 financial year is set out in the following tables. It is not possible to provide information prior to 2002 except at disproportionate cost.
| 2002/03 | |
| Campaign | Spend (£) |
| 2003/04 | |
| Campaign | Spend (£) |
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