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29 Jan 2009 : Column 840W—continued
Economic and Monetary Union
Mr. Maude: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families with reference to the answer of 30 June 2008, Official Report, column 628W, on economic and monetary union, when the updating of his Department’s euro changeover plan is expected to be completed. [250090]
Sarah McCarthy-Fry: The Euro Changeover Plan will be revised by the end of 2009 to take account of DCSF changes in the delivery of corporate services during the year.
NVQ: Teaching Assistants
Mr. Rob Wilson: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many teaching assistants have reached National Vocational Qualification level (a) 2 and (b) 3 of the Training Development for School programme. [248868]
Jim Knight: The information requested is not collected centrally.
Offences Against Children
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families with reference to the statement of 20 November 2008, Official Report, columns 372-74W, on safeguarding children, when he expects the further serious case review to be complete. [252685]
Beverley Hughes: The Chair of Haringey Local Safeguarding Children Board has been asked to submit the new Serious Case Review into the death of Baby P to Ofsted for evaluation by the end of February and to publish the executive summary by the end of March.
Official Cars
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what cars of what engine cubic capacity are (a) owned and (b) leased by his Department. [250030]
Sarah McCarthy-Fry: Two cars are currently owned by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (i) 2001 Vauxhall Vectra 1995 cubic capacity and (ii) 2003 Vauxhall Astra 1595 cubic capacity. No cars are currently leased by the Department.
Parents: Hearing Impaired
Mr. Gibb: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what his most recent estimate is of the number of deaf parents of children of school age. [251233]
Sarah McCarthy-Fry: The Department does not collect these data centrally.
We recognise the particular problems faced by disabled parents and our forthcoming parent survey will enable us to understand more fully the views of disabled parents. We have committed to providing guidance for schools and other settings on working with parents, which will include meeting the needs of deaf parents.
Pre-School Education
Mrs. Maria Miller: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families with reference to the findings of the Childcare and Early Years Providers Survey in 2007, what assessment he has made of the likely effects of trends in the profitability of children's centres on levels of childcare provision. [252063]
Beverley Hughes: The Department continues to provide support through guidance and close-working with partners to ensure that child care in children’s centres can be sustainable. Local authorities received £122 million in 2008/09 to help secure sufficiency and access to affordable, high quality child care in their areas. The Government remain committed to ensuring that high-quality child care is available for the most disadvantaged families, and children’s centres play a pivotal role in supporting this aim.
Schools: Energy
Gregory Barker: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (1) what steps his Department plans to take to ensure that Building Schools for the Future schools which are required to display a Display Energy Certificate do so; and if he will make a statement; [252587]
(2) how many schools in each region (a) are required to display and (b) display Display Energy Certificates; and what the energy consumption of each of those schools was in the latest period for which information is available; [252608]
(3) how many schools have incurred penalties for failure to (a) display a Display Energy Certificate and (b) obtain an associated advisory report; and how much has been imposed in such penalties; [252609]
(4) how many and what percentage of Building Schools for the Future programme schools were in each of the Display Energy Certificate energy efficiency bands A to G at the latest date for which information is available; [252611]
(5) what data his Department are gathering on the effect on carbon dioxide emissions of use of renewables technologies in Building Schools for the Future schools. [252655]
Jim Knight: The requirements to display a Display Energy Certificate (DEC) for an existing school and an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) for a new school are legal requirements, for which the enforcement responsibility rests with Local Trading Standards Offices. We do not keep records of whether schools have incurred penalties for non-compliance or of penalties. The Department's contribution is to help schools comply. To that end, we have issued guidance on the Teachernet website for all schools on the requirement for DECs in schools(1). We have no plans for further action beyond this.
The regulatory impact assessment produced by the Department for Communities and Local Government gives an estimate of the number of educational buildings in England that require a Display Energy Certificate(2) We do not know how many schools are displaying the certificates as required. The Department has published aggregated Benchmark National and Regional Statistics on Energy Consumption of Schools for 1999 to 2003(3).
New schools built under Building Schools for the Future are required to have an Energy Performance Certificate rather than a Display Energy Certificate. Existing schools which are refurbished will have DECs. Both DECs and EPCs are recorded on a national register available at:
To access the data the unique reference number of the certificate must be known. Schools can therefore access their data using their certificate number. Individual school energy data are kept confidential and Communities and Local Government only receive aggregated data from the register. There are no plans to publish individual school energy data although many local authorities and schools hold these data themselves. Communities and Local Government are developing a data handling strategy for the aggregate data which should be in place by April this year. From an existing extract of provisional data
from 19 December 2008 we know that, at that date, 28 secondary schools and 64 primary schools had EPCs. The numbers of these schools in each of the efficiency bands is given in the following table. To put these figures into perspective the average non-domestic EPC rating is currently a ‘C’.
| Percentage of primary schools | Percentage of secondary schools | Asset rating efficiency band | Asset ratings |
We are asking Communities and Local Government for a similar data extract for Display Energy Certificates and will be able to supply the efficiency band percentage splits to the hon. Member in the next two weeks. We will be discussing how future reports of the percentage splits can be made public with CLG as part of the development of their strategy for DEC and EPC data.
The data extract we have from CLG also lists the main heating fuel for all the schools. Where Biomass is the main heating fuel it is therefore listed. The three schools which have achieved ‘A’ ratings all have used biomass as the main heating fuel. This shows the impact that the use of biomass can have on the carbon rating of a school. No other renewables are identifiable on the data provided.
The Department requires that newly constructed schools, including those within Building Schools for the Future, meet a carbon emissions reduction of 60 per cent. relative to the energy efficiency standards in 2002 building regulations. Additional funding has been provided for more than 200 schools in Building Schools for the Future and the academies programme to fund the implementation of energy efficiency and renewable energy measures on school sites to enable this requirement to be met. We have developed a ‘carbon calculator’—a software tool—which allows users to compare the likely effectiveness of various energy efficiency and renewable energy solutions, and to demonstrate how they would achieve the 60 per cent. reduction. We have received completed carbon calculators for 53 school projects which are currently in design(4).
Partnerships for Schools monitors the compliance of the carbon ratings of school designs with government targets and in PFI schools ensures that the payment mechanism during the contract period (normally 25 years) reflects the DCSF policy on energy use. A low carbon rating may be due to energy efficient design or the employment of low and zero carbon fuels, including renewables.
(1) Webpage on Display Energy Certificates and Monitoring School Energy Consumption
(2) http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/planningand building/xls/324471.xls
(3) Energy and Water Benchmarks for Maintained Schools in England 2002-03, from
Schools: Vetting
Mr. Rob Wilson: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many (a) teachers, (b) classroom assistants and (c) school volunteers are waiting for Criminal Records Bureau clearance before taking up a position. [248865]
Jim Knight: The information requested is not collected centrally.
Social Services: Standards
Annette Brooke: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families which local authorities have received a grade one for safeguarding in their joint area reviews by Ofsted in the last 18 months. [252275]
Beverley Hughes: Five joint area reviews undertaken since April 2007 have reported services for safeguarding as grade 1, which signifies that inspectorates judged the services to be inadequate. They were the reviews of services in Haringey, Hertfordshire, Reading, Surrey and Wokingham.
Special Educational Needs
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many places there were in maintained special schools in each of the last 10 years, broken down by local authority. [247853]
Sarah McCarthy-Fry: Tables have been placed in the Library showing the number of pupils by type of school, including maintained special schools, in each local authority for the years 1999 to 2008.
The Department does not collect data on maintained special schools places but collects actual pupil numbers. In general, local authorities fund special schools on the basis of the number of pupils for which they will normally be expected to cater, whether or not the places are actually occupied. This enables a stable resource base to be maintained, while allowing for the admission of pupils whose needs are identified during the year.
Truancy
Michael Gove: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many and what percentage of pupils classed as persistent absentees were absent from school for more than (a) 100, (b) 150, (c) 200, (d) 250 and (e) 300 sessions of school in the 2007-08 academic year. [240612]
Sarah McCarthy-Fry: The information is not yet available.
Young People: Financial Services
Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (1) what steps he is taking to ensure young people are equipped with personal finance skills; and if he will make a statement; [251202]
(2) what plans he has to include personal finance skills in initial teacher training courses; and if he will make a statement. [251203]
Sarah McCarthy-Fry: Personal finance education is currently covered in the primary curriculum as part of the non-statutory framework for Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education and Citizenship. Sir Jim Rose is currently carrying out an independent review of the primary curriculum, including PSHE education, and will report in March 2009.
The new ‘economic wellbeing and financial capability’ programme of study has been taught in secondary schools since September 2008 as part of the revised secondary non-statutory curriculum for PSHE education. The place of economic wellbeing in the curriculum will
be further strengthened by our intention to consult on making PSHE education statutory.
The Government have also committed £11.5 million over three years to support financial education in schools. This includes provision to improve Continuing Professional Development (CPD) in financial capability for teachers. Standard Q15 in our standards for the award of Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) requires all trainee teachers at Key Stage 3 and 4 to demonstrate a familiarity with economic wellbeing and financial capability. Teachers of Business Education in the secondary phase will receive training in aspects of personal finance relevant to the 14-19 curriculum. We are working with the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) to develop a specialist PSHE education route through Initial Teacher Training.
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