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5 Feb 2009 : Column 1488W—continued
School Leaving
Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families when he plans to raise the education and training leaving age to (a) 17 and (b) 18 years; and if he will make a statement. [253199]
Jim Knight: Our intention is that from 2013 all young people will participate in some form of education or training post-16. We plan to raise the participation age in two stages: to 17 in 2013 and to 18 in 2015. The first cohort to benefit from these changes began year 7 in September 2008.
Schools: ICT
Mr. Purchase: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what powers Partnership for Schools has to prevent individual schools opting out of proposals for authority-wide ICT programmes in favour of submitting an Alternative Business Procurement Case. [252688]
Jim Knight: Partnerships for Schools does not have powers to prevent a school opting out of proposals for authority-wide ICT programmes. Where a school wishes to opt out of the managed service it must submit an Alternative Business Procurement Case. This must demonstrate that the school’s alternative provision will be at least of an equivalent standard to the managed service proposed by the local authority, that it is able to link up to the area-wide solution, and that it passes a value for money test to ensure taxpayers’ money is being well spent.
Schools: Music
Mr. Hunt: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (1) with reference to his Department’s press release of 21 November 2008, on funding for music in schools, how many new musical instruments have been bought with the funds announced; [254392]
(2) how much of the planned £40 million expenditure over four years on new musical instruments announced by his Department on 21 November 2007 has been spent. [254455]
Sarah McCarthy-Fry: The Music Instrument Fund (MIF) was introduced in 2007-08 and provides £10 million a year (capital grant) for LAs to purchase instruments for instrumental learning at key stage 2 or transitional programmes beyond key stage 2. In November 2007 it was announced that the £10 million grant would continue to 2011, hence the £40 million.
In 2007-08 local authorities claimed £9.97 million and 99,892 instruments were purchased. In 2008-09, £8.25million of the total allocation has already been claimed by local authorities and over 94,000 instruments purchased.
Schools: Parents
Mr. Sanders: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what assessment he has made of levels of accountability of schools to (a) parents and (b) students since 1997. [253306]
Jim Knight: Schools are accountable to the taxpayer, to parents and to pupils— both for their overall performance and for the outcomes of individual pupils.
The introduction of the New Relationship with Schools (NRwS) in 2004 brought about major changes to the school accountability framework, in order to make it more coherent and evidence-based. All schools now have a school improvement partner to help evaluate the school’s performance and identify priorities for improvement, and there is a greater emphasis on school self-evaluation and building schools’ capacity to drive their own improvement. The School Profile was also introduced to communicate with parents about each school’s progress, priorities and performance. Building on the NRwS, we now plan to make the accountability system even more coherent and better able to recognise the full range of each school’s achievements.
For example, school performance data are currently available to the public through the Achievement and Attainment Tables. However, we think there is scope for a wider range of information on schools’ performance to be reported in a clearer and more powerful way, so it can be more easily used by governors, parents and the public. In December, we launched a consultation on 21st Century Schools and the school report card. The school report card will set out a range of outcomes for which schools will be held to account and provide an indication of the degree of challenge faced by each school. The consultation will be followed by a White Paper in the spring and further consultation on the detail of the school report card indicators.
Parents and pupils also need to be able to hold schools to account for the outcomes they deliver for individual children. Schools must report individual children’s performance to parents and pupils at the end of the year, and many schools are now reporting pupils’ progress to parents on a more regular basis. We are supporting the development of teachers’ skills in pupil tracking through the Assessment for Learning Strategy, launched in May 2008 and underpinned by £150 million. We also expect that by 2010, all secondary schools will report online to parents on pupils’ attendance, behaviour, special educational needs and achievement, and that all primary and special schools will do so by 2012.
All schools are also required to have home school agreements, containing commitments made by the school and parents to support children’s education and well-being. In the children’s plan one year on progress report, we outlined a new approach to improving parents’ engagement and committed to review school reporting regulations and home school agreements and will shortly be consulting publicly on possible changes.
The inspection system gathers pupils’ and parents’ views about individual schools and assesses the extent to which parents are involved in their children’s learning and development. In April 2007 new powers were introduced to enable Ofsted to investigate complaints from parents about their children’s schools. These allow parents to raise concerns about systemic matters relating to a school which Ofsted can investigate. If the matter is of serious concern, this can lead to the immediate inspection of a school.
Schools: Standards
Mr. Laws:
To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what assessment he has made of
the potential effects on standards of attainment in maintained schools of the implementation by independent schools of Charity Commission guidance on bursary schemes; and if he will make a statement. [253323]
Jim Knight: My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, has made no assessment of the potential effects on standards of attainment in maintained schools of the implementation by independent schools of Charity Commission guidance on bursary schemes. It is for each independent school that has charitable status to decide for itself how to meet the public benefit requirement, having regard to the guidance published by the Charity Commission.
Secondary Education: Finance
Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what his policy is on the provision of funding for children in their final year of secondary school who have repeated a year. [253700]
Jim Knight: Local authorities receive revenue funding according to the number of pupils they have on roll at the spring school census—this would include those pupils that are repeating a year. Local authorities will apply their local funding formulae to fund schools in their area which takes account of all the children attending school.
Secondary Education: Vocational Guidance
Dr. Kumar: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many staff in secondary schools are employed to act as careers advisers in (a) England, (b) the North East, (c) the Tees Valley and (d) Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland constituency. [253129]
Jim Knight: Responsibility for curriculum organisation and staffing is delegated to local authorities and schools. We do not keep records centrally on the number of teaching staff involved in providing careers advice in secondary schools.
Social Services: Children
Miss McIntosh: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what recent representations he has received on the reorganisation of children's services in local authorities. [250958]
Beverley Hughes: My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, has received a large number of representations following the case of ‘Baby P' in Haringey. Many of the correspondents have been supportive of the current requirement to have integrated services for children under a single Director of Children's Services and some have suggested these arrangements should be reconsidered.
We are currently consulting on revised statutory guidance on the role of the Director of Children's Services and Lead Member for Children's Services. The consultation ends on 10 February 2009 and to date we have received three responses suggesting the current requirements for an integrated service should be reconsidered.
Social Services: Haringey
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what inspections of Haringey council Ofsted has undertaken since 2000. [245922]
Beverley Hughes: 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 both the Libraries.
Letter from Christine Gilbert, dated 22 January 2008
Your recent parliamentary question has been passed to me, as Her Majesty's Chief Inspector, for a response.
Ofsted inspected Local Education Authorities in conjunction with the Audit Commission from 1997 to 2005, under section 38 of the Education Act 1997. Ofsted inspected Haringey Local Education Authority in 2002 and again in 2003. These inspections are shown in Table A.
That inspection regime was replaced in September 2005 by the current cycle of Joint Area Reviews. Prior to 2005, all inspections of local authorities' children's services in relation to children's social care were undertaken by the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) and these inspections are, therefore, not included in this response.
Ofsted is responsible, with other inspectorates, for inspecting children's services provided in a local area. As such, we have carried out annual performance assessments (APA) under section 138 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 and a rolling programme of joint area reviews (JARs) in each of the 150 local authority areas of England under section 20 of the Children Act 2004. The full list of JARs and APAs carried out in Haringey is shown in Table B.
In April 2007, Ofsted took over responsibility for regulation and inspection of children's social care from CSCI. A list of the inspections carried out of Haringey Council social care services is shown in Table C. Please note that this includes only those inspections of services provided directly by Haringey Council and does not include all social care services in Haringey. CSCI reports from prior to April 2007 are not included in this response.
A copy of this reply has been sent to right hon. Beverley Hughes MP, Minister of State for Children, Young People and Families, and will be placed in the Library of both Houses.
| Table A: Local education authority inspections carried out in Haringey since 2000 | ||
| Type | Date | Publication date |
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families with reference to the answer of 24 November 2008, Official Report, column 936W, on Social Services: Haringey, if he will place in the Library a copy of the report of each Ofsted inspection of Haringey council’s children’s social services since 2000. [253515]
Beverley Hughes: Copies of Ofsted’s inspection reports and assessments of Haringey’s children’s social services are available on Ofsted’s website. The following links are provided at:
10 October 2006
http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/oxcare_providers/la_download/(id)/1446/(as)/JAR/jar_2006_309_fr.pdf
1 December 2008
http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/oxcare_providers/la_download/(id)/4657/(as)/JAR/jar_2008_309_fr.pdf
Annual Performance Assessments
1 December 2005
http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/oxcare_providers/la_download/(id)/258/(as)/APA/apa_2005_309.pdf
26 November 2007
http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/oxcare_providers/la_download/(id)/3060/(as)/APA/apa_2007_309.pdf
17 December 2008
http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/oxcare_providers/la_download/(id)/4687/(as)/APA/apa_2008_309.pdf
25 January 2008
http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/oxcare_providers/la_download/(id)/5041/(as)/SC/SC_SC042906_20032008.pdf
30 January 2008
http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/oxcare_providers/la_download/(id)/6180/(as)/SC/SC_SC072906_08032008.pdf
Copies have also been placed in the Library.
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