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  • Sharon Hodgson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Sharon Hodgson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sharon Hodgson on 2016-02-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 28 January 2016 to Question 23325, how much specific additional funding her Department has provided to Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission to support their inspection of the effectiveness of local areas in fulfilling their new special educational needs and disabilities duties.

    Edward Timpson

    Local area inspections will begin in May 2016 and will be completed over the next five years. For this financial year of 2015-16, the Department has allocated £349,087 of funding to Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission to meet the costs of developing this new type of inspection. We intend to provide Ofsted with funding to support this activity over the next five years.

    The data we will draw on to determine whether the special educational needs and disabilities provisions of the Children and Families Act have improved outcomes for children with special educational needs or a disability will include data on outcomes achieved by disabled children.

  • Sharon Hodgson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Sharon Hodgson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sharon Hodgson on 2016-02-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 28 January 2016 to Question 23325, whether she has carried out a review since 2014 of whether local authorities are meeting statutory requirements for the content of Education, Health and Care plans.

    Edward Timpson

    Since September 2014, Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans have been regularly monitored and reviewed. This is part of the Department’s ongoing work to support and challenge local authorities’ implementation of the reforms to the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) system. The Department also gathers information about EHC plans from parents and young people, through termly surveys of Parent Carer Forums, correspondence, and regular dialogue with parents’ and young people’s groups.

    Where individual EHC plans are considered not to be fully compliant, advice on how to improve them has been provided directly to the local authorities concerned by the Department’s team of SEND advisors. Thus far, our SEND advisors have noted issues around non-compliance for 29 local authorities, all of which were subsequently given advice about improving their EHC plans in order to fulfil statutory requirements

    Our advisors are currently delivering a number of workshops for local authorities on how to write high quality, legally compliant EHC plans, and to share good practice. The training resources from these workshops will be published shortly.

    There are a number of places where local authorities can find guidance about EHC plans. This includes the statutory SEND Code of Practice, which clearly sets out what must be included in a plan, and provides detailed guidance on the process that must be followed to produce one. There are also examples of good quality EHC plans produced by the SEND Pathfinder local authorities.

    The review of EHC plans carried out in 2014 looked specifically at EHC plan templates.

  • Sharon Hodgson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Sharon Hodgson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sharon Hodgson on 2016-02-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 28 January 2016 to Question 23325, how many local authorities received advice from her Department on Education, Health and Care plans that were considered to be non-compliant with statutory requirements in 2015.

    Edward Timpson

    Since September 2014, Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans have been regularly monitored and reviewed. This is part of the Department’s ongoing work to support and challenge local authorities’ implementation of the reforms to the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) system. The Department also gathers information about EHC plans from parents and young people, through termly surveys of Parent Carer Forums, correspondence, and regular dialogue with parents’ and young people’s groups.

    Where individual EHC plans are considered not to be fully compliant, advice on how to improve them has been provided directly to the local authorities concerned by the Department’s team of SEND advisors. Thus far, our SEND advisors have noted issues around non-compliance for 29 local authorities, all of which were subsequently given advice about improving their EHC plans in order to fulfil statutory requirements

    Our advisors are currently delivering a number of workshops for local authorities on how to write high quality, legally compliant EHC plans, and to share good practice. The training resources from these workshops will be published shortly.

    There are a number of places where local authorities can find guidance about EHC plans. This includes the statutory SEND Code of Practice, which clearly sets out what must be included in a plan, and provides detailed guidance on the process that must be followed to produce one. There are also examples of good quality EHC plans produced by the SEND Pathfinder local authorities.

    The review of EHC plans carried out in 2014 looked specifically at EHC plan templates.

  • Sharon Hodgson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Sharon Hodgson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sharon Hodgson on 2016-02-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 28 January 2016 to Question 23325, whether the data that her Department plans to draw on to determine whether the special educational needs and disabilities provisions of the Children and Families Act 2014 have improved outcomes for children will include data on outcomes achieved by disabled children.

    Edward Timpson

    Local area inspections will begin in May 2016 and will be completed over the next five years. For this financial year of 2015-16, the Department has allocated £349,087 of funding to Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission to meet the costs of developing this new type of inspection. We intend to provide Ofsted with funding to support this activity over the next five years.

    The data we will draw on to determine whether the special educational needs and disabilities provisions of the Children and Families Act have improved outcomes for children with special educational needs or a disability will include data on outcomes achieved by disabled children.

  • Sharon Hodgson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Sharon Hodgson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sharon Hodgson on 2016-02-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 26 January 2016 to Question 23324, for what reasons her Department has decided not to publish A-level data split by type of special educational need or to collect additional data on the outcomes achieved by students who have a disability but not an identified special educational need in 2015.

    Edward Timpson

    The statistical first release Level 2 and 3 attainment by young people aged 19 [1] includes attainment data broken down by School Action, School Action Plus and those with statements of SEN at academic age 15. The 2015 update will be published in April 2016.

    The Revised A level and other level 3 results in England statistical first release does not currently provide SEN or disability breakdowns but, as part of our reforms to 16-19 accountability measures, we will consider if it is possible to provide these breakdowns at national level in the future.

    [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/level-2-and-3-attainment-by-young-people-aged-19-in-2014

    “

  • Karen Buck – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Karen Buck – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Karen Buck on 2016-02-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will rank each secondary school in each London borough by the proportion of children who are eligible for the purpose of determining the pupil premium; and what type each such school is.

    Mr Sam Gyimah

    Information on the number of pupils eligible for the pupil premium is available in the final school level pupil premium allocations, which are published on the department’s website.[1] These figures can be used with the total number of pupils in each school (information which can also be found in the same publication) to calculate the proportion eligible for the pupil premium.

    [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pupil-premium-2015-to-2016-allocations – please click on ‘Pupil premium final allocations 2015 to 2016 by school in England’

    “

  • Karen Buck – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Karen Buck – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Karen Buck on 2016-02-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will rank primary schools in each London borough by the proportion of pupils with non-statutory special needs; and what type each such school is.

    Edward Timpson

    The proportion and number of children with non-statutory special needs, identified as ‘SEN support’ in each primary and secondary school, including type of school in London can be calculated from the underlying data of the publication Special educational needs in England: January 2015. This publication can be found on GOV.UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/special-educational-needs-in-england-january-2015

    We have no plans to rank this data.

    “

  • Karen Buck – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Karen Buck – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Karen Buck on 2016-02-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will rank secondary schools in each London borough by the proportion of pupils with non-statutory special needs; and what type each such school is.

    Edward Timpson

    The proportion and number of children with non-statutory special needs, identified as ‘SEN support’ in each primary and secondary school, including type of school in London can be calculated from the underlying data of the publication Special educational needs in England: January 2015. This publication can be found on GOV.UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/special-educational-needs-in-england-january-2015

    We have no plans to rank this data.

    “

  • Karen Buck – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Karen Buck – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Karen Buck on 2016-02-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will rank primary schools in each London borough by the proportion of children who are eligible for the purpose of determining the pupil premium; and what type each such school is.

    Mr Sam Gyimah

    Information on the number of pupils eligible for the pupil premium is available in the final school level pupil premium allocations, which are published on the department’s website.[1] These figures can be used with the total number of pupils in each school (information which can also be found in the same publication) to calculate the proportion eligible for the pupil premium.

    [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pupil-premium-2015-to-2016-allocations – please click on ‘Pupil premium final allocations 2015 to 2016 by school in England’

    “

  • David Anderson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    David Anderson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Anderson on 2016-02-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what support her Department offers to people affected by overpowering odour escapes from landfill sites.

    Rory Stewart

    The permits issued to landfill operators by the Environment Agency under the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010 regulations include conditions covering the management of odour. Operators of landfill sites are required to take appropriate measures to prevent odour pollution or minimise it when prevention is not practicable.

    In addition, as landfill sites are likely to give rise to odour problems operators are often required to submit an Odour Management Plan (OMP) for approval to the Environment Agency. The provisions in a site’s OMP, once it is approved, are treated as part of the permit and must be complied with.

    The Environment Agency undertakes routine monitoring to verify compliance with permit conditions and will respond to and investigate public complaints about odour. The Environment Agency will consider enforcement action to ensure compliance with permit conditions in accordance with its published guidance on enforcement and sanctions.

    Environmental permitting will usually provide sufficient protection against overpowering odour from landfill sites. If not, Local Authorities also have powers under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 to take action against smell from industry, trade or business premises if found to be a statutory nuisance.