Tag: 2016

Andrew Gwynne – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2016-05-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the report of Ofsted on its inspection of Audenshaw School Academy Trust which took place on 23 and 24 February 2016, if she will make an assessment of the effect on the students for whom pupil premium funding was intended of that funding being saved for a capital project.

Mr Sam Gyimah

The conditions of grant for the pupil premium make clear that its purpose is to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils. School leaders are best placed to decide how to spend the pupil premium in line with this policy and the needs of their pupils. Schools are not prevented from using the pupil premium to fund capital projects or from carrying over funding between years.

The Department for Education supports schools to make evidence-based decisions through the work of the Education Endowment Foundation, established to identify and promote effective practice in raising the attainment of disadvantaged pupils. The Department does not monitor how Academies and maintained schools spend the pupil premium but instead holds them to account for the outcomes of eligible pupils through the publication of data in performance tables and Ofsted inspection.

Where concerns are raised about the performance of an academy then they are addressed by the Regional School Commissioner with responsibility for that area. The Department also takes seriously any concerns about the financial management of a school. We are aware of the findings of the Ofsted report on Audenshaw School relating to its use of the pupil premium, following an inspection in February 2016. We are also aware that the Hon. Member, Andrew Gwynne, has met the Regional Schools Commissioner for Lancashire and West Yorkshire, Vicky Beer, on a number of occasions to discuss his concerns about Audenshaw School Academy Trust. The Department has carefully reviewed all the information provided on this matter and has identified no grounds to take further action.

01/01/2023
Cheryl Gillan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Cheryl Gillan on 2016-07-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many children and young people who are either educated at home or not in employment, education or training are recorded within the statistics and analysis on statements of special educational needs and education, health and care plans in England published on 26 May 2016; and under which categories such children and young people are recorded.

Edward Timpson

The number of children and young people with a statement or education, health and care (EHC) plan who are educated at home is not specifically collected in the ‘Statements and EHC plans England: 2016’ publication[1]. However, as these children and young people will be included in the total number of children and young people with statements and EHC plans, local authorities are likely to have included these children and young people in the ‘other arrangements made by the local authority’ or ‘other arrangements made by the parent’ category.

The number of children and young people with statements or EHC plans who are not in employment, education or training (NEET) is not specifically collected in this statistical first release. Where young people have a statement or EHC plan and are NEET, they will be included in one of the other categories, e.g. ‘other arrangements made by local authority’ or ‘awaiting provision’.

There is not an exhaustive list of arrangements included in the category of ‘Other – arrangements made by the local authority in accordance with Section 319 of the Education Act 1996 or Section 61 of the Children and Families Act 2014’. The published SEN 2016 guide for local authorities[2] completing this part of the collection is as follows:

‘Section 319 of the Education Act 1996 empowers an authority to provide education for children with special educational needs “other than in school”. This may include education in centres run by social services or at home. Children would not normally be on another school register.

‘Section 61 of the Children and Families Act 2014 empowers an authority to provide education for children and young people with special educational needs “other than in school, post-16 institutions, etc”. This may include education in centres run by social services or where the local authority has named home education on an EHC plan.’

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/statements-of-sen-and-ehc-plans-england-2016

[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/special-educational-needs-survey-2016-guide

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01/01/2023
Tom Blenkinsop – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Blenkinsop on 2016-09-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 7 September 2016 to Question 44365, what assessment the Health and Safety Executive has made on the effect of long shift patterns on the incidence of (a) errors, (b) accidents and (c) injuries in (i) all sectors of the workforce and (ii) the mining industry.

Penny Mordaunt

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) does not hold this information. However, HSE recognises that poorly designed shift-working arrangements and long working hours can result in fatigue, accidents, injuries and ill health and has produced guidance for employers on designing and implementing shift-working arrangements:

(http://www.hse.gov.uk/humanfactors/topics/fatigue.htm).

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01/01/2023
Cheryl Gillan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Cheryl Gillan on 2016-01-19.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether his Department plans to (a) make provision for non-EU furnished holiday let owners to benefit from the ability to offset finance costs, but not the additional reliefs that are available to EU furnished holiday let owners, or to extend the definition of a furnished holiday let to be include non-EU properties and enable access to all reliefs.

Mr David Gauke

No.

01/01/2023
Jamie Reed – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jamie Reed on 2016-02-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, if he will take steps to ensure that jobs created by the (a) new nuclear project at Moorside and (b) the Solway Firth Tidal Lagoon project are available to local people.

Anna Soubry

The Government is working with the energy industry to maximise economic benefits from new electricity generation projects and is providing support to enhance the competitiveness of the supply chain, including improving the skills and employability of the construction workers in the industry.

In addition Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership has identified nuclear and energy excellence as a key priority contributing significant growth opportunities for the Cumbria economy. The Local Enterprise Partnership has strong ambitions to drive growth across the Cumbria area by improving the delivery of skills, infrastructure, environmental sustainability and business support.

01/01/2023
David Mackintosh – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, whether his Department has put incentives in place to encourage uptake of apprenticeship schemes from private companies.

Nick Boles

There have been over 2.4 million apprenticeship starts over the previous parliament, and 153,100 between August and October 2015, demonstrating the continued expansion of the apprenticeships programme.

We are taking action to support and encourage the growth of apprenticeships in all sectors to meet our commitment to reaching 3 million starts by 2020. The UK-wide levy will be introduced in April 2017 for all employers in public and private sector with a pay bill of £3m or more, to help fund the increase in quantity and quality of apprenticeship training in England. All employers that hire apprentices will benefit from the levy.

Our apprenticeship reforms are giving employers the opportunity to create new apprenticeship standards. More than 1300 employers are involved with 204 new standards published (of which over 60 are Higher and Degree Apprenticeships) and more than 150 are in development. So far there have been over 1,000 starts on the new standards.

We are continuing to support small employers to hire apprentices through the Apprenticeship Grant for Employers (AGE), which provides eligible employers with a £1,500 grant per apprentice (aged 16 to 24) for up to five new apprentices currently. The AGE will continue to operate until the apprenticeships levy is introduced in April 2017. From April 2016, all employers will not be required to pay employer National Insurance contributions for apprentices under age of 25 on earnings up to the upper earnings limit.

01/01/2023
Richard Burden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Burden on 2016-04-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to ensure that (a) his Department and (b) Highways England are improving their assessments of user satisfaction in relation to the strategic road network.

Andrew Jones

The Department appointed Transport Focus (TF) as the road user watchdog and the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) as the Highways Monitor on the formation of Highways England on 1 April 2015. In addition to reporting from TF and ORR, officials regularly meet with Highways England to discuss all aspects of their performance, including customer satisfaction.

TF is developing a new Strategic Roads User Survey to measure satisfaction among those using Highways England’s network with input from the Department. It is intended to pilot this throughout 2016 and then launch the new survey during 2017. This will run in parallel with Highways England’s existing National Road User Satisfaction Survey until that ceases in March 2018.

01/01/2023

Jim Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-05-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many successful applicants to the Schools Direct scheme there were in each of the last five years; and what the cost of that scheme was to her Department in each such year.

Nick Gibb

The School Direct scheme began as a pilot tuition fee based programme in the 2012/13 academic year. The programme was extended to include School Direct (salaried) programmes from the 2013/14 academic year.

The number of successful applicants (trainees who secured and took up a place) on School Direct programmes, and the associated cost (where available), from 2012/13 to 2014/15 are given in table 1:

Academic year	Number of School Direct (tuition fee) trainees	Number of School Direct (salaried) trainees	Cost of training bursaries for SD (fee) trainees	Cost of salary grants for SD (salaried) trainees
2012/13	349	N/A	Unavailable	N/A
2013/14	4,203	2,473	Unavailable	£40,320,214
2014/15	6,311[1]	2,759	£36,539,000	£43,031,709

Table 1: Number of School Direct trainees and associated costs from 2012/13 to 2014/15.

We are unable to provide the training bursary costs specific to School Direct only for trainees for 2012/13 and 2013/14, as the data captured did not make a distinction between core and school direct tuition fee places for the purpose of bursary funding.

Data for the 2015/16 academic year will not be available until after the end of the academic year when data submissions will be finalised and subsequently validated.

[1] Of the 6,311 tuition fee trainees in AY 2014/15, 4,264 received a bursary.

01/01/2023

Rachael Maskell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rachael Maskell on 2016-07-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the effect of the outcome of the EU referendum on future levels of migrant labour from other EU countries in the farming industry.

George Eustice

Workers from other EU countries are an important and valued part of our workforce. Over the next two years whilst we negotiate a new relationship with the EU, nothing changes.

This will be one of the issues that will have to be resolved as part of our exit negotiation and future relationship with the EU.

01/01/2023
Jessica Morden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jessica Morden on 2016-09-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what the current value is of Farepak unclaimed funds.

Margot James

The current value of Farepak unclaimed funds is £1,007,267.41.

The agency will hold the funds for the next six years, people can however continue to claim indefinitely. The Insolvency Service has liaised with media outlets and the matter has been covered by BBC Moneybox, MoneySaving Expert and BBC Watchdog, to draw attention to any unpaid creditor or has yet to come forward.

01/01/2023