Speeches

Sadiq Khan – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-04-29.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how many prisoners did not have (a) Key Stage 1, (b) Key Stage 2 and (c) Key Stage 3 qualifications in (i) English and (ii) mathematics when they entered prison in each of the last five years.

Matthew Hancock

We do not centrally hold information on prior attainment.

Work is under way to introduce, this summer, mandatory education assessment by the Offenders’ Learning and Skills Service (OLASS) provider for all newly-received prisoners. This will ensure that all offenders, not just those that go on to learning, receive a learning assessment (focused around English and maths, but also covering learning difficulties and disabilities).

Table 1 shows Offender Learner English and Maths Achievements for the 2012/13 academic year. The data are broken down by Level rather than Key Stage as this is the appropriate measure for further education qualifications.

Table 1: Offender Learners – English and Maths Achievements by level, 2012/13

Level

English

Maths

Entry level

5,100

5,250

Level 1

3,550

4,020

Level 2

1,280

1,930

Total

9,300

10,100

Notes

1) The data source is the Individualised Learner Record.

2) Volumes are rounded to the nearest ten except for the Grand Totals which are rounded to the nearest hundred.

3) Learners undertaking courses at more than one level will be counted once for each applicable level, but once only in the Total.

4) Offender learners are defined as offenders aged 18 or over that participated in Skills Funding Agency funded learning while in the prison system. These offenders were funded via the Offenders’ Learning and Skills Service (OLASS) budget.

Information on Offender Learner English and maths achievements by level for 2010/11 and 2011/12 is published as a Supplementary Table to a Statistical First Release. Data for earlier years are not available on a comparable basis.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/284253/January2013_OLASS_Participation_Achievement.xls

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/fe-data-library-further-education-and-skills