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10 Feb 2009 : Column 1948W—continued
The schools list includes BSF One School Pathfinders, academies and schools receiving ICT funding only as they have recently been rebuilt.
Catz Club
Mr. Maude: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families whether (a) his Department, (b) its predecessor and (c) its agencies have provided funding to the charity (i) Catz Club and (ii) Schoolfriend in the last five years. [250348]
Beverley Hughes: I am informed that the Department for Children, Schools and Families and its predecessor the Department for Education and Skills have no record of any direct payments to either “Catz Club” or “Schoolfriend” during the last five years.
The Department does not have any Executive Agencies.
Children: Care Homes
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many and what percentage of children's homes did not meet the national standards for care homes on the latest date for which figures are available. [247857]
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 the Library.
Letter from Christine Gilbert, dated 27 January 2009:
PARLIAMENTARY QUESTION NUMBER 247857: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, how many and what percentage of children's homes did not meet the national standards for care homes on the latest date for which figures are available.
Your recent parliamentary question has been passed to me, as Her Majesty's Chief Inspector, for a response.
There are 36 national minimum standards for children's homes, each with a number of underpinning criteria. Most, but not all, of these standards are legal requirements set in regulations. A detailed list of the standards, detailing those which are legal requirements, can be found in the Department of Health's 2002 document Children's Homes: National Minimum Standards, available at
Where providers do not meet the national minimum standards that are legal requirements, we set 'actions', to which providers must respond. Ofsted uses its enforcement powers to bring about compliance in these cases.
Table A shows the number of children's homes that failed to meet at least one of the national minimum standards linked to a legal requirement set in regulations during the inspection year 2007-08 (the last full year for which we have data). Inspectors judged that the majority of the failures to meet the standards did not have a significant impact on outcomes for children. As a result, overall we judged only 8% of children's homes as inadequate during that same period.
Where providers do not meet national minimum standards that are not legal requirements, Ofsted makes 'recommendations'. We can also set recommendations to bring about improvement over and above the national minimum standards. We do not distinguish in our records between those recommendations we set in relation to improvement and those we set for failing to meet an aspect of the national minimum standards. We can not, therefore, supply data about children's homes which did not meet those national minimum standards that are not linked to legal requirements.
A copy of this reply has been sent to Rt Hon Beverley Hughes MP, Minister of State for Children, Young People and Families, and will be placed in the library of both Houses.
Children: Databases
Mrs. Maria Miller: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families with reference to the Answer of 8 October 2008, Official Report, column 474W, on children: databases, which usability issues his Department is resolving before the ContactPoint system is user tested. [252077]
Beverley Hughes: ContactPoint is designed to save time for professionals working with children, therefore ensuring smooth working for users is very important.
The purpose of testing is to uncover issues and deal with them before deployment. We discovered a number of issues that we wanted to rectify before commencing the final stages of testing with users. They were typical for this stage of project delivery and included minor functional changes and enhancements to screens. If not rectified, these issues can cause frustration to those involved in testing activity and can restrict the benefit that the activity can provide.
We have always said that we will take the time to get ContactPoint right. We wanted to ensure that testing provided the maximum benefit possible and therefore took the decision to fix these issues before commencing testing with users on 13 October 2008. The user testing phase completed successfully on 28 November 2008.
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families pursuant to the answer of 28 January, Official Report, columns 648-9W, on children: databases, if he plans to make the monthly assessments of early adopter local authorities public. [255624]
Beverley Hughes
[holding answer 9 February 2009]: The monthly assessments are undertaken by local authorities and are project documents internal to the local authorities themselves. Local authorities provide the information to the Department on the basis that it
will be used to enable the Department to assess progress, provide targeted support where necessary and to share good practice. It is not collected for the purpose of publication. The assessments are not intended or designed for publication.
Children: Protection
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how much (a) central government and (b) each local authority has spent on child protection in each of the last five years. [250183]
Beverley Hughes: The information requested is not collected centrally.
Many local Children’s Trust partners commit expenditure to child protection including the police, health services, and local authority children’s social services departments. Net expenditure by local authorities in England on children’s social care, which includes expenditure on child protection, in each of the last five years is as follows:
| £ million | |
| Source: Budgets Annual RA return Outturn PSS EXP1 | |
Expenditure in other areas of local authority activity, for example on early years services and school transport, also contribute to the safeguarding and protection of children and young people.
Estimated programme expenditure by DCSF on safeguarding in 2008-09 will be £47.3 million, and expenditure was £32.5 million in 2007-08. These totals include revenue and capital expenditure on the introduction of the Vetting and Barring Scheme, the Making Safeguarding Everyone’s Responsibility programme and the beginning of a grant arrangement with NSPCC. It is not possible to identify the amounts specifically allocated to child protection.
Children's Services: Doncaster
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families who preceded Paul Gray as Director of Children's Services in Doncaster. [253476]
Beverley Hughes: Paul Gray was preceded as Director of Children's Services for Doncaster Metropolitan borough council by Jim Crook.
Education Maintenance Allowance
Mr. Clifton-Brown: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (1) how many staff Capita plans to employ to administer the education maintenance allowance; [254206]
(2) whether all applicants for education maintenance allowance in the present academic year have been awarded grants backdated to the start of that year; [254207]
(3) how many education maintenance allowance payments have not been made. [254208]
Jim Knight: This is a matter for the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) who operate the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) for the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF). Mark Haysom the LSC’s chief executive, will write to the hon. Member for Cotswold with the information requested and a copy of his reply will be placed in both Libraries.
Mr. Gibb: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families with reference to the answer of 26 November 2008, Official Report, column 1846W, on education maintenance allowance, how many students have (a) received a notice of entitlement for the education maintenance allowance, (b) successfully enrolled and (c) received at least one payment since September 2008. [254483]
Jim Knight: This is a matter for the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) who operate the education maintenance allowance (EMA) for the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF). Mark Haysom the LSC’s chief executive, will write to the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton with the information requested and a copy of his reply will be placed in both Libraries.
Education Maintenance Allowance: Blackpool
Mr. Marsden: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many young people in Blackpool South constituency received education maintenance allowance in each year since the scheme was established. [253969]
Jim Knight: This is a matter for the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) who operate the education maintenance allowance (EMA) for the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF). Mark Haysom the LSC's chief executive, will write to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South with the information requested and a copy of his reply will be placed in both Libraries.
Education Maintenance Allowance: Leeds
John Battle: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many students in Leeds West constituency received education maintenance allowance in each year since 2005. [255474]
Jim Knight: This is a matter for the Learning and Skills Council, who has operational responsibility for the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) and holds the information about take-up and payments made under the scheme. Mark Haysom, the Council's Chief Executive, will write to my hon. Friend with the information requested and a copy of his reply will be placed in both Libraries.
General Certificate of Secondary Education
Mr. Gibb: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families pursuant to the answer of 14 January 2009, Official Report, column 845W, on general certificate of secondary education, how many and what percentage of pupils in the maintained mainstream sector achieved five GCSEs including a modern language at grades A* to C in 1997, broken down by index of multiple deprivation decile. [254485]
Jim Knight: The information requested is not available.
Head Teachers: Recruitment
Dr. Kumar: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what steps his Department takes to ensure that the functioning of schools is not affected by the process of recruiting new headteachers. [254889]
Jim Knight: The head teacher vacancy rate remains low and stable, and no school is without a head, as there will always be an acting head in place. However, we do know that some schools in some areas find it more difficult than others to recruit heads. We have invested £30 million in the National College for School Leadership’s (NCSL) succession planning work, which is helping local authorities and schools to develop local solutions to find, develop and retain great school leaders. The NCSL is also developing new accelerated leadership provision, designed to allow those with the necessary skills to move rapidly to headship.
Health Education: Drugs
Mr. Gray: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what type of training teachers providing drugs education in secondary schools are required to undertake; and what the duration of such training is. [254036]
Jim Knight: There is no requirement for teachers to undertake particular training on drug education. Drug education is delivered through personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE). The Department provides £2 million funding each year to train teachers and professionals who deliver PSHE. Over 8,000 practitioners (primarily teachers) have completed the national PSHE continuing professional development (CPD) programme since it began in 2003, and there are a further 1,600 practitioners undertaking the programme this year. Schools also have access to a variety of CPD provision through their local authorities and commercial provision.
The Department is exploring with the Training and Development Agency for Schools how a route through initial teacher training can be created to become a specialist PSHE teacher.
Literacy and Numeracy: North East
Dr. Kumar: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what measures his Department has introduced to improve levels of (a) literacy and (b) numeracy in the north-east since 1997. [254910]
Jim Knight: There have been significant improvements in standards of literacy and numeracy in the north-east region since 1997 due to a range of policies including increased investment; new primary and secondary teaching frameworks; better use of pupil data; the targets schools and local authorities have set for their pupils; challenge and support to local authorities through the national strategies; and targeted intervention to tackle school failure.
Our Children's Plan goal is for 90 per cent. of 11-year-olds to achieve level 4+ in both English and mathematics by 2020. Extra one to one and small group tuition is being rolled out and by 2010 this will have helped 300,000 children nationally in English and in mathematics. Every Child a Reader, Every Child a Writer and Every
Child Counts programmes are being introduced and a new primary school improvement strategy will be published later this year.
At secondary level the National Challenge and ‘Gaining Ground: Improving progress in coasting secondary schools’ are now in place and a number of schools in the north-east will benefit from the additional funding provided to help them improve outcomes for pupils.
The following table shows results for the north-east for pupils at the end of primary and secondary school:
Further statistical information on educational performance in the north-east region, parliamentary constituencies and at district and ward level are available on the In Your Area website at
| Key stage 2 and 4 results for north-east Government office region | ||||||||||||
| 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | ||
| Notes: 1. KS2 results for 2008 are provisional. The coverage of data for the north-east region was 93 per cent. for English and 97 per cent. for mathematics. 2. KS4 results prior to 2005 relate to the performance of 15-year-old pupils. From 2005, figures relate to the performance of pupils at the end of key stage 4. 3. All figures are published in Statistical First releases. | ||||||||||||
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