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1 Jun 2009 : Column 284W—continued
Teachers: Vacancies
Mr. Graham Stuart: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what the school teacher vacancy rate was in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement. [275039]
Jim Knight: Full-time vacancy rates in local authority maintained schools in each of the last five years can be found in Table 6 of the Statistical First Release “School Workforce in England (including pupil: teacher ratios and pupil: adult ratios), January 2009 (Provisional)”. This can be accessed from the following link:
Truancy
Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many school days were lost to truancy in the last 12 months for which figures are available. [272969]
Sarah McCarthy-Fry: Information is collected on authorised and unauthorised absence.
Unauthorised absence is absence without leave from a teacher or other authorised representative of the school. This includes all unexplained or unjustified absences, such as lateness, holidays during term time not authorised by the school, absence where reason is not yet established and truancy. Information collected by the Department on absence is a more comprehensive measure of children’s missed schooling. Our focus is on reducing all forms of absence, not just a small subset. The issue is not whether the pupil had permission to be absent; it is how much absence the pupil has.
The number of days lost due to absence is shown in the following table.
| Primary, secondary and special schools( 1, 2) , number of days of absence( 3) , 2007/08, England | ||
| Number of days | Absence rate | |
| (1) Includes city technology colleges and academies. (2) Includes maintained and non-maintained special schools. Excludes general hospital schools. (3) Includes pupils age five to 15 who were on roll for at least one session from the start of the school year up until 23 May 2008, excluding boarders. Note: Figures have been rounded to the nearest 10. Source: School Census. | ||
Mr. Evans: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many parents in (a) Lancashire and (b) England have appeared in court on charges related to unauthorised absences from school of their children in the last (i) six, (ii) 12 and (iii) 24 months. [277439]
Jim Knight: The Ministry of Justice collects data for England and Wales on prosecutions brought against parents under the Education Act 1996 for the offence under s444(1) of failing to secure their child’s regular attendance at school; and for prosecutions under s444(1A), the aggravated offence of knowing that their child is failing to attend school regularly. It is possible, because of the way courts record data that some data are collected under the more general heading of various offences under the Education Act 1996.
The information on the number of parents prosecuted by local authorities in England and Lancashire for failing to secure their children’s regular school attendance between 2006 and 2007 (latest available data) is detail in the following table.
Young People: Voluntary Work
Tony Baldry: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families pursuant to the Answer of 11 May 2009, Official Report, columns 598-9W, on young people: voluntary work, what his most recent estimate is of the average cost of a placement as part of the Entry to Employment programme. [276103]
Jim Knight: Funding for the Entry to Employment programme will be administered by the Learning and Skills Council (LSC). As the information requested is with regard to an operational matter for the LSC, I have asked Geoffrey Russell, the acting LSC chief executive, to write to the hon. Member with the information requested. I will arrange for a copy of his letter to be placed in the House Libraries.
Young People’s Learning Agency
Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families when he expects the Young People’s Learning Agency to be set up; and what mechanisms there will be for the agency to co-operate with specialist independent post-16 institutions. [275806]
Jim Knight: Independent Specialist providers of post-16 education and training play an important role in providing education for learners with learning difficulties and disabilities, often with very specific needs and requirements. We recognise the value of having a diverse mix of high quality providers that ensures that our young people are able to access the right course or provision to help them realise their goals and ambitions. We do not feel it is appropriate to centrally guarantee funding streams for particular institutions. Local authorities will need to work in partnership with each other, providers and young people and their families to assess the level of demand in their area and to commission suitable provision that meets young people’s needs.
Provision has been made in clause 40 of the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning (ASCL) Bill to require local authorities, when commissioning provision, to take account of the quality of provision being secured and encourage diversity in the range of education and training on offer to support learner choice. In addition, in deciding whether education and training is suitable to meet young people’s reasonable needs, local authorities will be required to have regard to any learning difficulties the persons may have.
We believe that the transfer to local authorities will have significant benefits in terms of a more informed and integrated commissioning of their services leading to better outcomes for learners. Arrangements are being developed, in consultation with stakeholders, that recognise that independent specialist colleges will often work across local authority boundaries and nationally, and consideration is being given to the need to minimise bureaucracy for these and other learning providers. These arrangements will feed into the statutory guidance being developed for local authorities in respect of their commissioning responsibilities which the Young People’s Learning Agency (YPLA) will publish when it comes into being in April 2010, subject to the passage of the ASCL Bill.
We do not expect the YPLA to be involved in the commissioning of learning provision in the vast majority of cases, although there may be some circumstances where it may need to commission provision directly, for instance:
where a local authority is failing or looks likely to fail in fulfilling its duties under clauses 40 and 47 of the Bill to commission suitable education or training;
with a small number of national providers for whom it may be appropriate to commission at a national rather than local level; and
where the sub regional group (SRG) identifies that they are not yet ready to take on the role.
In those cases, the YPLA will need to engage those providers, including specialist colleges, to ensure that they are commissioned effectively in response to the needs of young people.
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