Craig Whittaker – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Craig Whittaker on 2016-06-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what funding her Department has allocated to schools in (a) Calderdale and (b) West Yorkshire to tackle bullying in the last (i) 12 months and (ii) five years.

Edward Timpson

The Government continues to make tackling all forms of bullying a top priority. All schools are required by law to have a behaviour policy with measures to tackle bullying among pupils. While they are free to develop their own anti-bullying strategies they are held clearly to account for their effectiveness through Ofsted.

School funding to prevent and tackle bullying is part of their overall funding allocation, and is not separately identified at school or local authority level. In addition, the Department has directly funded a number of national anti-bullying organisations, supporting their work within schools across England to combat bullying.

In 2015/16 we provided around £1.3 million to various anti-bullying charities including the Diana Award, Kidscape and the National Children’s Bureau (hosted by the Anti-bullying Alliance). These organisations train teachers and pupils in schools to prevent bullying and deal with its impact when it occurs so that bullied children do not suffer continuing distress. Additionally in the past 12 months we have supported the Government Equalities Office (GEO) to deliver a £2 million grant programme aimed at combatting homophobic bullying in schools.

Between 2011 and 2016 we provided over £6.6 million to these and other charities to help them to support schools to support pupils who are bullied and to develop strategies to prevent bullying from happening.

The Department and GEO will both be funding further projects this year.