Speeches

Chi Onwurah – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chi Onwurah on 2015-02-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what her Department’s training budget was in each of the last three financial years.

Mr Nick Gibb

The Department for Education holds a central training and development budget covering core education and training undertaken through Civil Service Learning. This includes development in core Civil Service skills including leadership and management, financial management and analysis. The table below shows the centrally managed budget for each of the past three financial years.

Financial Year

Budget

12/13

£700,000

13/14

£700,000

14/15

£600,000

Additionally, directorates across the Department spend an element of their budgets on training and development which varies dependant on in-year development needs. The table below shows both central training and development spend and Directorate spend for each last 3 financial years.

Financial Year

Total spend

Average number of staff (based on Full Time Equivalents)

Average spend per member of staff (based on Full Time Equivalents)

2014/15 (covering the period April to December only)

£1.3m

3353.7

£390

2013/14

£2.2m

3539.4

£620

2012/13

£3.2m

3801.1

£840

In addition to formal training, the Department for Education encourages staff to take advantage of a variety of different professional development opportunities not captured by this expenditure, including job shadowing, on-the-job training and peer mentoring.