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15 Jan 2009 : Column 921W—continued
| 2003 job grade breakdown by payband | 2003 headcount | Percentage of total staff with management responsibility |
Children in Care
John Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what plans he has for the implementation of his Department's Care Matters proposals; and if he will make a statement. [247255]
Beverley Hughes: The Care Matters implementation plan was published in March 2008, jointly with members of the Children's Inter-agency Group and other partners including Local Government Association including and Association of Directors for Children's Services. Since then:
We received Royal Assent in November 2008 for the Children and Young Persons Act which provides the legislative basis for many of the reforms.
We have launched nine sets of pilots set out in Care Matters and will shortly launch the Social Work Practices and the Social Pedagogy pilots.
Regional conferences have taken place across England to begin the implementation of care matters reforms. A number of regions are currently holding sub-regional conferences;
Implementation of the Children and Young Persons Act along with supporting regulations and guidance, over the next year.
We will continue to work closely with partners across sectors to drive up improvements in outcomes for looked after children, building on the new inspection framework being developed by Ofsted, work by the Centre for Excellence in Outcomes and sector led initiatives.
We will review progress in an annual ministerial stocktake, with the first in autumn 2009. The stocktake will give us the opportunity to evaluate progress and ensure we are on track to deliver our aims for children in care. A short report will be laid before Parliament after each stocktake.
John Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what steps he is taking to improve the educational support and stability of life of looked-after children. [247470]
Beverley Hughes: Through the White Paper “Care Matters: Time for Change” and the Children and Young Persons Act 2008 the Government have put in place a range of measures to improve the educational support and placement stability of looked after children. This includes an annual personal education allowance of £500 for looked after children who are at risk of not reaching the expected standards of attainment.
To ensure that looked after children get the support they need to help them achieve their potential the governing body of all maintained schools will be required to appoint a designated teacher, and care leavers who undertake a course in higher education will be entitled to a bursary of £2,000.
We are also strengthening care planning arrangements to reduce disruption to education and training as a result of changes in care placements. Through initiatives such as the Fostering Changes training programme and the Multi-dimensional Treatment Foster Care and Social Pedagogy pilots we are also taking action to help improve the range of support and skills for foster carers and residential workers to help them meet the needs of looked after children to prevent placement breakdown.
Children: Carers
John Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what funding his Department has provided to the Children's Society to support professionals working with young carers in the last 12 months. [247000]
Beverley Hughes: Funding for the Children's Society's project to support and train professionals working with young carers is made available through the Department for Children, Schools and Families' Children, Young People and Families grant programme. In the last 12 months (from January 2008 to December 2008) the Children's Society has received £204,067.
The grant was awarded to enable the Children's Society in partnership with the Princess Royal Trust for Carers to draw together resources and guidance on good practice in supporting young carers and their families and, on the basis of that, to help train and inform social workers, health workers, teachers and voluntary groups in meeting their needs. The project also supports local authorities to take a whole family approach in the delivery of their support services.
Funding for the project as a whole covers three financial years running from April 2007 to March 2010. For the current financial year (April 2008 to March 2009), the agreed grant is £203,541, of which £152,655 has already been paid. In the financial year 2007-08, £206.651 was provided; in 2009-10, £208,472 has been awarded, bringing the total available for this project over the three year period to £617,644.
Children: Disabled
Mr. Harper: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what funding streams he plans to include in the individual budgets for disabled children in the forthcoming pilots; and if he will make a statement. [247736]
Sarah McCarthy-Fry: We envisage that the majority of the funding supporting individual budgets in the pilot areas will be sourced from local budgets available to the Director of Children's Services and PCT managers rather than specific grants from DCSF. Determination of these budgets will be a local matter for both local authorities and partnering PCTs. There are however some local authority grants from Government which pilot areas may wish to incorporate. We will indicate in guidance to pathfinder areas that we would like them to explore how the Area Based Grant and the Aiming High for Disabled Children block within the Sure Start Early Years and Childcare Grant can be utilised within individual budgets. Further funding streams may also be indicated at a later date.
Children: Human Trafficking
John Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what recent steps he has taken to improve the protection of children who may have been trafficked. [247384]
Beverley Hughes: The Government ratified the Council of Europe convention on action against the trafficking of human beings on 17 December 2008 as part of its wider strategy set out in ‘UK Action Plan on Tackling Human Trafficking’ and published in March 2007. In December 2007 the DCSF and Home Office jointly published guidance on safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children who may have been trafficked.
Early identification is the key to protecting these vulnerable children, DCSF is therefore working with the Home Office and key stakeholders to develop a toolkit to help front line staff recognise the potential indicators of trafficking as part of a new National Referral Mechanism (NRM) being set up under the convention to protect all victims of trafficking.
In addition to this the DCSF has provided substantial funding for ECPAT (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes) to deliver training on child trafficking to front line practitioners dealing with children who may have been trafficked.
Children: Literacy
John Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what progress has been made under the Every Child a Writer programme; and if he will make a statement. [247395]
Sarah McCarthy-Fry: Improving standards of children's writing is a major priority for this Government, and will be vital in ensuring we reach our Public Service Agreement targets in 2011 for 78 per cent. of children to be reaching the expected level in English and maths.
Since September 2008 we have been piloting Every Child a Writer, a commitment from our Children's Plan, with funding of £25 million over three years. This programme aims to improve children's writing through leading teacher support for class teachers and intensive one-to-one tuition in the areas of writing children find hardest to master. Every Child a Writer is being piloted in nine local authorities and is due to scale up to reach all local authorities by 2010/11. From next year a further 60 local authorities will enter the programme.
In September we also launched new materials called Support for Writing for teaching children to write across Key Stages 1 and 2. This guidance and exemplification is available online through the Primary Framework, and is based on effective teaching strategies in the areas we know children find hardest about writing at the moment. The materials focus on ensuring children make good progress in their writing through outlining incremental small steps in learning within the year and specific classroom examples of how teachers might chose to approach each step.
John Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families when he plans to publish an evaluation of the National Year of Reading. [247397]
Sarah McCarthy-Fry: The 2008 National Year of Reading has been led on behalf of the Department by the National Literacy Trust, who will publish an evaluation in the spring 2009.
Children: Obesity
Joan Walley: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what plans he has to tackle obesity among children under the age of six years. [247516]
Sarah McCarthy-Fry: The “Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives” strategy, published in January 2008 set out the Government’s comprehensive plans to reduce obesity—initially focusing on children. Every child should grow up eating well and enjoying being active and we want parents to have the knowledge and confidence to make this happen. There is no single, simple solution to reducing rates of overweight and obesity and therefore Government are taking action on a number of fronts.
The updated Child Health Promotion Programme was published in March 2008 and prioritises obesity prevention and physical activity through positive parenting during pregnancy and the early years of their children’s lives while supporting families facing particular risk factors attributed to causing obesity. We are working to support as many mothers as possible to breastfeed and to continue to breastfeed for longer—helped by schools, children’s centres, health and other services, all promoting healthy weight. The introduction of the Early Years Foundation Stage for 0 to 5-year-olds means that all early years education providers must promote the good health of children, by providing healthy, nutritious food and active play. The Play Strategy, launched in December 2008, sets how Government will invest £235 million over 2008-09 to 2010-11 to develop play facilities for children of all ages.
Once children start school they can benefit from school food which must meet statutory nutritional and nutrient-based standards. Nine out of 10 children aged five to 16 now take part in at least two hours of high quality PE and school sport each week, compared to one in four in 2002. Nearly all schools are currently participating in the National Healthy Schools Programme with over two-thirds with full National Healthy School Status, having demonstrated they have in place the minimum evidence for 41 criteria across four themes: emotional health and well-being; healthy eating; physical activity and personal, social, health and economic education.
The National Child Measurement Programme, which weighs and measures children in reception year and year 6 is now in its fourth year and has a participation rate of 88 per cent. From 2008, primary care trusts can routinely feed back the results to parents. All this is supported by the Change4Life campaign which aims to help families eat well, move more and live longer and which is initially focused on families with young children.
Children: Protection
John Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many preventable child deaths there were in 2007; and if he will make a statement. [247008]
Beverley Hughes: The reviewing of all child deaths by Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCBs) became mandatory in April 2008. We will shortly be collecting data on the number of deaths reviewed by each LSCB in 2008-09 and the number of these deaths which boards assessed as having been preventable. These data will be published in autumn 2009.
John Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what assessment he has made of the implications for his Department's policy and practice of the Joint Chief Inspectors' report on safeguarding children. [247390]
Beverley Hughes: The Government published their full response to the joint Chief Inspectors' report on 15 December 2008. This accepted all of the recommendations on safeguarding. The report provided evidence of improvements in children's services and in outcomes for children and young people since the previous report in 2005, but noted that there was still more to be done to ensure that reforms were being implemented systematically by all local agencies so that children in every part of the country receive the protection they need.
On 12 November 2008 the Government announced that an independent report would be prepared by Lord Laming on progress being made across the country in implementing effective arrangements for safeguarding children. Lord Laming's work will address key features of good safeguarding practice and whether they are being universally applied across the country, including the development of the professional work force, inter-agency working and effective means of public accountability. Lord Laming will also look at what specific actions should be taken by national Government and other agencies to accelerate improvement across the country.
Children: Safety
John Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many home safety equipment schemes have been established in each region to date. [247391]
Beverley Hughes: The Department for Children, Schools and Families does not collect information on this topic. However, information provided by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents suggests that there are around 760 local home safety equipment schemes operating in England. This information is not broken down by region.
In the Children’s Plan the Government announced an £18 million National Home Safety Equipment Scheme to help disadvantaged families reduce the risk of accidents in the home. The National Home Safety Equipment Scheme will work with local partners in disadvantaged areas with the highest child accident rates to support the expansion of existing schemes and encourage the establishment of new schemes.
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin wrote to local authorities informing them of the Government’s progress in delivering the National Home Safety Equipment Scheme on 21 October 2008. Since then, as part of a competitive tending process, the Department for Children, Schools
and Families has received and evaluated bids to host the Scheme. A contract to deliver the scheme will be awarded shortly.
Children's Centres
John Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many people have been awarded the National Professional Qualification in Integrated Centre Leadership to date. [247291]
Beverley Hughes: 1,051 people have been awarded the National Professional Qualification in Integrated Centre Leadership to date.
Classroom Assistants: Pay
Mrs. Gillan: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many (a) nursery nurses and (b) teaching assistants employed in Slough have not been receiving equal pay compared to Slough Borough Council employees undertaking work of equivalent value in each of the last five years; what estimate he has made of (i) the number of women affected and (ii) the potential financial liability of Slough Borough Council; and when he expects the local authority to pay back-dated compensation to the women affected. [247795]
Beverley Hughes: The information requested is not held centrally. When setting staff remuneration it is for individual local authorities, as employers, to ensure that they comply with equal pay legislation.
Departmental Advertising
Michael Gove: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what advertising expenditure (a) his Department and its predecessors and (b) its non-departmental public bodies have incurred in each of the last five years, broken down by budget heading. [240638]
Sarah McCarthy-Fry: 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.
Advertising is part of a fully integrated promotional campaign. The question refers specifically to advertising and we have been able to separate the Department's spend on advertising, as this is centrally placed through the Central Office of Information. The cost of recruitment advertising for the Department has not been included as it is not possible to establish a definitive figure, except at disproportionate expense. The Department's advertising spend and that of its predecessor (DfES) since 2004 is set out in the following tables, with a breakdown of individual campaigns. All figures exclude VAT. Non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs) have their own separate funding streams and consequently administer and manage their own advertising expenditure.
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