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9 July 2009 : Column 996W—continued
Justine Greening: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (1) what recent estimate has been made of the annual cost to (a) his Department of distributing each grant made by it to local authorities and (b) local authorities of administering each such grant; [285052]
(2) what (a) eligibility conditions and (b) compliance measures are in place in respect of the expenditure by local authorities of each grant distributed by his Department; and what recent estimate has been made of the annual cost to his Department of monitoring the compliance by local authorities with such measures in respect of each such grant. [285120]
Mr. Coaker: No estimate has been made of the annual costs to the Department or to local authorities, of distributing, administering and assessing compliance of local authority grants. Information on the eligibility criteria and compliance measures for grants are set out in departmental circulars which can be found on the Department’s Every Child Matters website at:
Further details of the grants covering school funding can be found on the teachernet website at:
http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/management/resourcesfinanceandbuilding/capitalinvestment/guidanceindex/
Office for Standards in Education Children’s Services and Skills
Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many and what proportion of school inspectors working on behalf of Ofsted (a) have been headteachers and (b) have qualified teacher status; and if he will make a statement. [282069]
Mr. Coaker: 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 House Libraries.
Letter from Christine Gilbert, dated 6 July 2009:
Your recent parliamentary question has been passed to me, as Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, for reply.
As of 2 July 2009, Ofsted employs 443 Her Majesty’s Inspectors (HMI), including 82 that have a management role. Of the total, 245 (55%) inspect schools. The remainder inspect further education, work-based learning, social care and other sectors. All of the 245 who inspect schools have teaching experience in one or more education sectors as this is a key criterion for selection to the role.
I am unable to provide the information you seek about which inspectors were formerly headteachers, as we do not record electronically the career profiles of individuals. This information could only be obtained at disproportionate cost through a review of each individual’s personnel file or by a request to each individual to provide the information.
There are also 1948 additional inspectors provided through our regional inspection service providers (RISPs), of whom 1567 (80%) undertake school inspections. I can confirm that almost all of these additional inspectors have teaching experience, as this is one of the key criteria for selection to the role. However, there is a very small number who were former lay inspectors under the framework for inspection that was known as section 10, superseded by the current framework in September 2005. In the former framework, each inspection team included a lay inspector who was fully trained as an inspector, but had no previous experience in teaching or school management. Their purpose was to bring a lay person’s view to the inspection process. A few of the most experienced of them have been employed by RISPs as additional inspectors.
I am unable to provide you with the number of these inspectors as this information is contained in the personnel records held by the RISPs. It can only be obtained at disproportionate cost through a manual search of personnel files.
With regard to the proportion of additional inspectors who have been headteachers, Ofsted does not have access to this information as we are not involved in the recruitment process. This work is undertaken by the RISPs.
A copy of this reply has been sent to Vernon Coaker MP, Minister of State for Schools and Learners, and will be placed in the library of both Houses.
Physical Education
Mike Penning: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what proportion of pupils aged between five and 16 years spent at least two hours per week on high quality physical education and school sport in each of the last five years. [284769]
Mr. Iain Wright: The percentage of pupils aged 5-16 spending at least two hours per week on high quality physical education and school sport as measured by the annual school sports survey conducted by TNS is as follows:
| Percentage | |
Pupil Referral Units
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many pupil referral units which closed in the past five years had never been inspected by Ofsted; and how many such units had received one Ofsted inspection and been found to be inadequate at that inspection. [282023]
Mr. Coaker [holding answer 24 June 2009]: 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 House Libraries.
Letter from Christine Gilbert, dated 3 July 2009:
Your recent parliamentary question has been passed to me, as Her Majesty's Chief Inspector, for reply.
130 pupil referral units are recorded as having closed between 1 June 2004 and 31 May 2009. Of these, 54 were never inspected by Ofsted and 37 had received no more than one inspection. Eight of these 37 were placed in special measures at that inspection.
Special measures is an Ofsted category, defined in the Education Act 2005, meaning that a school is failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education and the persons responsible for leading, managing or governing the school are not demonstrating the capacity to secure the necessary improvement. Please be aware that the framework for inspecting maintained schools changed in January 2000 and September 2005. As a result, there has been no consistent ‘inadequate’ category over time. This response is, therefore, limited to those pupil referral units placed in special measures, as this category has been in use throughout the period in question.
A copy of this reply has been sent to Vernon Coaker MP, Minister of State for Schools and Learners, and will be placed in the library of both Houses.
Pupils: Absenteeism
Mr. Sanders: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what estimate he has made of the number of school days missed through unauthorised absence in 2007-08; and if he will make a statement. [284293]
Mr. Coaker: In 2007-08, 9.6 million days out of a possible 948.9 million school days were lost due to unauthorised absence, giving an unauthorised absence rate of 1.01 per cent.
Our focus is on reducing all forms of absence, not just a small subset. Absence rates are down from 7.41 per cent. in 1996-97 to 6.29 per cent. in 2007-08, which means that on average there are 70,000 more pupils in school every day. The issue is not whether the pupil had permission to be absent; it is how much absence the pupil has. The number of ‘persistent absentees’ has fallen from 4.1 per cent. in 2006-07 to 3.6 per cent. in 2007-08.
Findings on absence during the 2007-08 school year were published in a Statistical First Release in February 2009 at:
Pupils: Per Capita Costs
Mike Penning: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what the average expenditure per school pupil in Hemel Hempstead was in each year since 1989. [283677]
Mr. Coaker: Figures are not available for the parliamentary constituency of Hemel Hempstead as data are collected at a local authority level. The available information on the average expenditure per school pupil in Hertfordshire local authority is shown in the following tables.
| School based expenditure per pupil in local authority maintained schools in Hertfordshire 1992-93 to 2007-08 | ||||||||
| 1992-93 | 1993-94 | 1994-95 | 1995-96 | 1996-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-99 | ||
| Total (including pre-primary) | Total (including pre-primary) | Total (including pre-primary) | Total (including pre-primary) | Total (including pre-primary) | Total (including pre-primary) | Total (including pre-primary) | ||
| 1999- 20 00 | 2000-01 | 2001-02 | |||||
| Total (including pre-primary) | Total (excluding pre-primary) | Total (including pre-primary) | Total (excluding pre-primary) | Total (including pre-primary) | Total (excluding pre-primary) | ||
| 2002-03 | 2003-04 | 2004-05 | 2005-06 | 2006-07 | 2007-08 | ||
| Total (excluding pre-primary) | Total (excluding pre-primary) | Total (excluding pre-primary) | Total (excluding pre-primary) | Total (excluding pre-primary) | Total (excluding pre-primary) | ||
| Notes: 1. School based expenditure includes only expenditure incurred directly by the schools. This includes the pay of teachers and school-based support staff, school premises costs, books and equipment, and certain other supplies and services, less any capital items funded from recurrent spending and income from sales, fees and charges and rents and rates. This excludes the central cost of support services such as home to school transport, local authority administration and the financing of capital expenditure. 2. 1999-2000 saw a change in data source when the data collection moved from the RO1 form collected by the ODPM to the Section 52 form from the DFES. 2002-03 saw a further break in the time series following the introduction of Consistent Financial Reporting (CFR) and the associated restructuring of the outturn tables. Each table represents a change in source. From 2002-03 school based expenditure is taken from Section 52 Outturn Table A line 51 net current expenditure (NCE). For 2001-02 and earlier years the expenditure is calculated as lines 1 to 12 less lines 29, 30, 35 and 37. This differs from the old Net Institutional Expenditure (NIE) calculation only in the treatment of meals and milk which is no longer excluded and no adjustments for balances are now made. This is taken from Section 52 Outturn Table 3 for 1999-2000 to 2001-02 and from the RO1 form previously. 3. The calculation for 2002-03 onwards is broadly similar to the calculation in previous years. However, 2001-02 and earlier years includes all premature retirement compensation (PRC) and Crombie payments, mandatory PRC payments and other indirect employee expenses. In 2001-02 this accounted for approximately £70 per pupil. From 2002-03 onwards only the schools element of these categories is included and this accounted for approximately £50 per pupil of the 2002-03 total. Also, for some LAs, expenditure that had previously been attributed to the school sectors was reported within the LA part of the form from 2002-03, though this is not quantifiable from existing sources. 4. Pupil numbers include only those pupils attending maintained establishments within each sector and are drawn from the DFES Annual Schools Census adjusted to be on a financial year basis. 5. Local government reorganisation (LGR) took place during the mid to late 1990's and those LAs that did not exist either pre or post LGR are shaded out for those years. 6. Spending in 1997-98 reflects the transfer of monies from local government to central Government for the nursery vouchers scheme. These were returned to local government from 1998-99. 7. The 1999-2000 figures reflect the return of GM schools to local authority maintenance. Consequently LAs where there entire pupil provision were educated in GM schools will show a unit cost of zero prior to 1999-2000. 8. Expenditure was not distinguished between the pre-primary and primary sectors until the inception of Section 52 for financial year 1999-2000. 9. School based expenditure in LA maintained nursery schools was not recorded in 2002-03 and comparable figures are not available for 2003-04 onwards. 10. Figures are rounded to the nearest £10. Cash terms figures as reported by local authorities as at 30 June 2009. | |||||||
School Leaving
Mr. Sanders: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many and what proportion of pupils left school without achieving Level 4 in (a) mathematics and (b) English in each of the last 10 years. [284744]
Mr. Coaker: Schooling is compulsory until the end of Key Stage 4, so no pupils left school without completing Key Stage 1.
The National Curriculum standards have been designed so that most pupils will progress by approximately one level every two years. This means that by the end of KS1, pupils are expected to reach Level 2.
Since 2005, the Department only published teacher assessment results for Key Stage 1. These are now the only results schools are required to report to the Department for Children, Schools and Families. In reading, writing and mathematics, these results are informed by the task/tests activities undertaken by children during the academic year.
Prior to 2004, both National Curriculum task/test and teacher assessments had been submitted to the Department and provided complementary information about pupil attainment.
Figures for results from 2004 onwards are not directly comparable with those prior to 2004, and care is needed in interpreting trends in the data.
The national results at Key Stage 1 from 1998-2008 can be found in the following publications. These show for seven year-olds, the level distribution at key Stage 1.
| Publication Link | |
| (1) From 2006, only provisional results are published as there is little change from provisional to final data | |
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