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3 Nov 2009 : Column 946W—continued
Home Education
Mr. Lidington: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what estimate he has made of the cost under each budgetary heading of implementing each of the recommendations of the Badman Review of elective home education in England. [293619]
Ms Diana R. Johnson: We estimate, subject to discussion with the Local Government Association, that the overall additional costs for implementing the registration and monitoring elements of the Badman Review recommendations will be £21.65 million in the first year with additional ongoing annual costs of £9.78 million.
We estimate that an additional support package for home educated children will cost a further £21 million in the first year rising to £22 million in subsequent years. This is based on an estimated cohort of 25,000 home educated children who all seek additional support. We know that this estimate may be too low and we will adjust our funding commitments as local authorities get more clarity over the numbers of home educated children and the services they may seek.
The 28 recommendations are wide ranging but the financial costs fall into the following broad categories:
| Estimated cost | ||
| £ | ||
| First Year | Ongoing | |
Parents: Training
Susan Kramer: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many parents have attended a parenting course for separated parents under the provisions of the Children and Adoption Act 2006; and what assessment has been made of the effectiveness of such courses since December 2008. [278062]
Dawn Primarolo: As at the end June 2009, from national data collected by CAFCASS, 21 people had attended a parenting programme under the provisions of the Children and Adoption Act 2006. It is too early to make any assessment of the effectiveness of this programme.
Pre-School Education
Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families when he expects all two to five- year-olds to have access to the pre-school entitlement of 15 hours per week; and if he will make a statement. [296949]
Dawn Primarolo: From September 2010 every three and four-year-old will be eligible to receive 15 hours free early learning per week for 38 weeks of the year. Most local authorities are already delivering the new 15-hour offer to their 25 per cent. most disadvantaged children from September 2009.
We are committed to rolling out a free entitlement to two-year-olds, stage by stage. The most disadvantaged two-year-olds in every local authority can already access a free place of at least 10 hours a week, 38 weeks per year. The Prime Minister recently announced that we will extend the two-year-old places to 250,000 children by end of the next Parliament. This is an increase of over 10-fold. Any future extension to the offer will be considered when practicable.
Pre-School Education: Finance
Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families pursuant to the answer of 8 July 2009, Official Report, column 892W, on pre-school education: finance, how much of the £363 million unspent by his Department on early years capital programmes in the financial year 2008-09 had been intended for the Quality and Access Early Years capital grant. [291461]
Dawn Primarolo: Childcare, Quality and Access capital forms part of the main capital block of the Sure Start, Early Years and Childcare grant (together with funding for children's centres and, in 2008-09, workplace nurseries). The constituent parts of the block are not individually ring-fenced, allowing local authorities the freedom to spend the grant flexibly to best meet their local objectives.
The Department does not require local authorities to disaggregate their funding until they submit an audited annual financial statement detailing how much they spent on each funding strand. For 2008-09 those statements are not due before the end of October 2009.
The Department's accounts at year end need to be finalised before the audited returns are due from local authorities. Therefore the underspend for Early Years' capital is estimated based on the amounts claimed in year and the trend in historic spend rates. The Department will be in a position to confirm those estimates and disaggregate expenditure on Childcare, Quality and Access once audited accounts are received.
Primary Education
Mrs. Maria Miller: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what percentage of children in primary schools linked to phase one Sure Start centres achieved the national standard in each of their key stage 1 assessments in the last 12 months. [289321]
Dawn Primarolo: We do not collect data on the percentage of children in primary schools linked to phase one Sure Start children's centres who achieved the national standard in each of their key stage 1 assessments, and to collect this information would involve disproportionate cost. The overall Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (EYFSP) results were published in a Statistical First Release on 14 October 2009.
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many children attended (a) two, (b) three, (c) four, (d) five and (e) 10 primary schools in the last year for which figures are available. [295510]
Ms Diana R. Johnson: The requested information can be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Pupil Exclusions
Michael Gove: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (1) for what average length of time a permanently excluded pupil missed school through fixed-period exclusion before the permanent exclusion took effect in each year for which figures are available; [296261]
(2) on how many occasions on average a permanently excluded pupil was given a fixed-period exclusion before permanent exclusion in each year for which figures are available. [296262]
Mr. Coaker: The available information for 2006/07 and 2007/08 is shown in the table.
The table shows the average number of days that pupils spent out of their school following one or more fixed period exclusions prior to receiving a permanent exclusion from the same school. This does not imply that they missed education over the whole of this period, since the Education and Inspections Act 2006, which came into effect in September 2007, requires schools to provide full-time suitable education from the sixth day of any period of fixed period exclusion of six days or more.
Pupil Referral Units
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families pursuant to the answer of 9 July 2009, Official Report, columns 997-8W, on pupil referral units, what the equivalent figures are for each local authority area. [294152]
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 Libraries.
Letter from Christine Gilbert, dated 20 October 2009:
Your recent parliamentary question has been passed to me, as Her Majesty's Chief Inspector, for response.
In my response to Parliamentary Question 282023 of 9 July 2009, I indicated that 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. Table A shows the Local Authority of the 54 pupil referral units which were not inspected by Ofsted; and Table B shows the Local Authority of the 37 pupil referral units which received no more than one inspection, indicating where that inspection resulted in the unit being placed in special measures.
A copy of this reply has been sent to Vernon Coaker MP, Minister of State for Schools and Learners, and placed in the library of both Houses.
| Table A: Number of pupil referral units in each local authority which closed during the last 5 years and had never been inspected by Ofsted | |
| Local authority | Number of pupil referral units |
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