Tag: Department for Education

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 14 January 2011.

Michael Gove today formally confirmed that Dr Elizabeth Sidwell, the highly respected headteacher and chief executive of the Haberdashers’ Aske’s Federation of schools, will be the new schools commissioner.

Following this week’s school performance tables there are now 216 secondary schools and 962 primary schools below the floor standard. Michael Gove will now challenge local authorities and schools to build on their current work and produce robust improvement plans to turn around schools which are underperforming. Many will benefit from becoming academies, and Dr Sidwell will engage with schools, local authorities and potential sponsors so that more academies replace schools that are underperforming. Her role will be to:

• broker academy arrangements between schools that would benefit most from an academy solution and established sponsors with a good track record of performance improvement
• encourage and recruit more potential academy sponsors
• enthuse leaders of good schools to go for academy status
• raise the profile of Free Schools among prospective proposers.

Welcoming Dr Sidwell to her new post, Education Secretary Michael Gove said:

There are few people in the education world with the pedigree and quality of Elizabeth Sidwell. She has been at the forefront of education policy for over 20 years, first as head of the brilliantly successful Hatcham College, one of the most popular schools in the country, and more recently taking on underperforming schools through the Academy programme.

She will be an excellent schools commissioner, using her credibility and knowledge to go round the country, speaking to local authorities, and challenging them and their schools to come up with robust plans for improving.

I know that Elizabeth will be fair, but not shy away from recommending strong solutions, such as academy status, to those schools who are not making good enough progress.

There are still too many schools below the floor target, and the Government will not blink when it comes to standing up for the rights of children to get a better education.

Dr Sidwell said today that:

It is a tremendous honour to be schools commissioner for England. After 20 years of running schools I am very excited at the prospect of working at a national level to help drive something that all of us want to see – more good schools for all of our pupils, regardless of their background.

I know how great the challenge is in some areas. I know how dedicated and hardworking teachers are across the country – desperately trying to improve their schools. I want those teachers to know that I’m on their side.

However, I will not shy away from confronting failure, and I will be honest when I don’t think schools are improving fast enough. My direct experience of transforming a good school to great, turning round a seriously failing school, transforming primaries and setting up a new school means I am not asking anyone to do what I, and others across the country, have not already done.

The Coalition Government introduced new floor standards for schools in November’s Schools White Paper. These new standards, which are higher but fairer than previous targets, require schools to be above certain attainment levels and also have pupils making at least average progress between Key Stage levels in English and mathematics. For secondary schools the new attainment target is 35 per cent of pupils getting five GCSEs at A* to C including English and mathematics, and in primary schools the requirement is 60 per cent of pupils achieve level 4 in English and mathematics at Key Stage 2.

The schools commissioner post was created in the 2006 Education and Inspections Act, and was formerly held by Sir Bruce Liddington.

Notes to editors

Dr Liz Sidwell is currently chief executive of the Haberdashers’ Aske’s Federation in South London. She was formerly principal of Haberdashers’ Hatcham College in Lewisham, which was rated outstanding by Ofsted. It is also one of the most oversubscribed schools in London, with 12 applications for every place. In 2005 Dr Sidwell led the federation of Hatcham College with the Mallory School, an underperforming school, which became Haberdashers’ Knights Academy. Since becoming part of the federation, results have risen by over 30 percentage points from a start of less than 7 per cent of pupils getting five or more good GCSEs, and Ofsted has said the school is ‘a rapidly improving school that provides a good education for its students’.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 7 January 2011.

Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education, has written to the NSPCC, the Musicians Union, Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music and Youth Music in response to their advice to music teachers to avoid any physical contact with children.

Michael Gove writes:

By telling your music teachers that they should avoid any physical contact with children, it sends out completely the wrong message. It plays to a culture of fear among both adults and children, reinforcing the message that any adult who touches a child is somehow guilty of inappropriate contact. We must move away from this presumption and the Department for Education is taking steps to restore common sense to this whole area.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 7 January 2011.

Ofsted has today published an evaluation of science education in schools and colleges in England from 2007 to 2010. Responding to the report’s findings, Schools Minister Nick Gibb said:

Science is a critically important subject for this country which needs to be taught by those with knowledge and flair. It is good that many schools are providing pupils with an excellent science education, but it is disappointing that some of our brightest pupils are being held back because of a lack of expertise. The recent PISA study also gives cause for concern, with England slipping down the international league tables in science – from 4th in 2000 to 16th in 2009.

As Ofsted points out, teachers must be properly equipped with the right skills and knowledge if standards in our schools are to improve. Our recent White Paper outlines how we will do this – by creating more opportunities for teachers to learn from each other and by building a new cadre of teaching schools, which will act as local centres of excellence in teacher training and development.

We will also review the National Curriculum to make sure pupils are properly equipped for further study. The introduction of the new English Baccalaureate, which will include science GCSEs, will also provide a powerful incentive for schools to drive participation in science at GCSE and beyond.

We hope all schools and FE colleges will learn from the best practice shown in this report to drive improvement in science education.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 6 January 2011.

Figures released today show momentum is building for the government’s flagship school reform. The government announced today that

• there are now 407 academies open in England
• 371 secondary schools are now academies – 11 per cent of all secondary schools in England.
• 204 academies have opened since September 2010 under the coalition government, with 46 opening this week alone. Of these, 136 were schools converting to becoming academies that will now use their academy freedoms to support weaker schools. Sixty-eight were weaker schools that had been granted academy status and new sponsors to help them turn round underperformance
• at least one school has converted to become an academy every school day since September
• an additional 254 more schools are in the pipeline having applied to become academies, with more applications coming in every week
• Sixty-four schools applied to become academies in the last week before Christmas alone
• it took 4 years to open the first 27 academies. It took 5 years to open 15 city technology colleges.

In addition, the Department for Education is working with academy sponsors who have targeted underperforming schools. Plans are advanced to reopen these schools as academies in the coming academic year.

Michael Gove today congratulated the schools becoming academies this term:

I am delighted that more schools are opening as academies this week, and are now free from central and local bureaucratic control.

Schools are taking up our offer to become academies because they recognise the huge benefits of being an academy – more autonomy, more power to teachers, and an opportunity to thrive, free from interference from government.

The Coalition believes that headteachers and teachers – not politicians and bureaucrats – know best how to run schools. That’s why all school now have the opportunity to become academies, with stronger schools supporting weaker ones.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 3 January 2011.

Dear Sir

Your thoughtful leader (3 January 2011) on behaviour in schools points out the radical changes we are making to restore the authority of teachers and headteachers by strengthening their powers to search pupils, issue detentions and use force where necessary.

However, it is wrong to say that we are making it more difficult for headteachers to exclude unruly pupils. In fact, we are increasing the powers headteachers have to exclude by ensuring that pupils cannot be reinstated against a school’s wishes.

You are right to point out that we are also piloting a new system to help pupils who have been expelled. Schools will have the power, additional money and responsibility to secure alternative education for these pupils. We don’t believe this will act as a deterrent to exclusion. Many headteachers are wary of expelling disruptive pupils for fear of the poor quality of alternative provision. By improving that alternative it will be easier for heads to exclude those pupils who need more specialised help to tackle their behavioural problems.

Yours faithfully

Nick Gibb
Minister of State for Schools

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 20 December 2010.

Michael Gove has today set out the direction of travel, and initial funding, for the coalition government’s new approach on school sports. Schools will receive funding to allow PE teachers to further embed competitive sport in schools across the country and raise participation.

Every secondary school will receive funding up to the end of the academic year in 2013 to pay for one day a week of a PE teacher’s time to be spent out of the classroom, encouraging greater take-up of competitive sport in primary schools and securing a fixture network for schools to increase the amount of intra- and inter-school competition.

Lottery funding from Sport England will also be deployed to build a framework of competitions as part of the new School Games. Competitions for pupils with disabilities and SEN will be included at every level. All schools will be invited to compete against one another in district competitions, leading to county festivals of competitive sport, and even the chance of appearing in the first national finals in spring 2012 with events at the Olympic Stadium.

This approach will mean that funding and support are there so that school sports partnerships can continue, if schools wish them to, in order to drive an increase in competitive sport.

The government will also:

• revise the PE curriculum in our curriculum review to place a new emphasis on competitive sports
• invite Dame Kelly Holmes to lead a network of sporting advocates to work with her in promoting school sport around the country and to encourage more young people to participate in sport
• work through Sport England with the national governing bodies of individual sports to get more volunteer sports leaders and coaches into our schools to encourage wider participation
• fund the Youth Sport Trust to expand the Young Ambassadors programme so that every secondary school, and some primary schools too, can appoint ambassadors in the run up to London 2012.

The coalition government’s new approach marks a departure from the previous strategy.

Previously, PE and Sports strategy was driven by top-down targets, undermined by excessive bureaucracy, limiting the freedom of individual schools on how they used their funding, especially on sports and PE and lacked a proper emphasis on competitive team sports.

We have abolished the targets and the box-ticking that went with it. Instead we will ask schools to list the sports they offer and the fixtures they have arranged on their website so parents and the local community can support children and young people.

We have removed ringfences around the main school funding pot which limited headteachers’ powers to spend money as they wished. Schools funding can now be spent through a variety of sources. For the first time schools now have the freedom to choose how they deliver sport in schools. This is a bottom-up, decentralised approach to sport.

As we move towards a system where schools enjoy progressively greater freedom over how they spend money it is important that we do not lose the benefits of those aspects of the existing school sports infrastructure which have brought real benefits.

The government recognises the good work that school sport partnerships, and national bodies such as the Youth Sports Trust, Sport England, the Association for PE, Sportscoach UK, and many national governing bodies of sport, have done in supporting sport in schools and wants to ensure that there is a smooth transition to this new system. The Department for Education is therefore announcing time-limited funding to help schools embed this good practice:

• The DfE will pay school sport partnerships for the full school year to the end of the summer term 2011 at a cost of £47 million. This will ensure the partnerships and their service can continue until the end of the academic year.
• A further £65 million from the DfE’s spending review settlement will be paid to enable every secondary school to release one PE teacher for a day a week in the school year 2011 to 2012 and in 2012 to 2013. This will ensure all the benefits of the current system are fully embedded.

Michael Gove commented:

I want competitive sport to be at the centre of a truly rounded education that all schools offer. But this must be led by schools and parents, not by top down policies from Whitehall. It’s time to ensure what was best in school sport partnerships around the country is fully embedded and move forward to a system where schools and parents are delivering on sports with competition at the heart.

This will take some time and I’m pleased to be able to confirm some funding for school sports partnerships during this transition. But I’m looking to PE teachers to embed sport and put more emphasis on competitions for more pupils in their own schools, and to continue to help the teachers in local primary schools do the same.

The government is clear that at the heart of our ambition is a traditional belief that competitive sport, when taught well, brings out the best in everyone, be they the Olympian of tomorrow or the child who wants to keep fit and have fun learning new sports and games.

Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport Jeremy Hunt said:

The School Games will be a fantastic opportunity for schools to get children inspired by the London Olympics, not just in 2012 but for years to come, creating a lasting sporting legacy. The competition will capture the values and spirit of the Olympic and Paralympic movement, and benefit from the knowledge and expertise of the Youth Sport Trust. And with competitions up and down the country with the final being held in the Olympic Park, it will also secure the passions and enthusiasm of the young competitors. Competitive sport is hugely important for all school children and the transitional funding outlined today will allow schools to help deliver this.

Baroness Sue Campbell, Chair of the Youth Sport Trust, said:

The Youth Sport Trust is absolutely delighted that the coalition government has taken the decision to build on the great work that is being delivered across the country in school sport and is providing a level of investment that will allow all young people to continue to have opportunities to take part, and compete, in sport. We are fully committed to support schools as they transition into this new phase of development.

Dame Kelly Holmes is a well-known, independent, respected and long-standing advocate of school sport. The Secretary of State has invited Dame Kelly to lead sporting advocates to work with her in promoting school sport around the country and to encourage more young people to participate in sport.

Dame Kelly said:

I’ve been pleased to be able to advise the government on school sport. I am pleased to see the funding extended as I believe the school sport partnerships have done some great work and think their biggest success has been to raise the profile of sport in schools, bring PE and sport to more children and the professional standing of all the teachers who teach PE and sport.

However with the need for change in the current economic climate, schools will start to be creative in their thinking to find local solutions to maintain the current levels of participation in sport as well as a focus on competition. I like the emphasis on competition as well as participation because healthy competition is the driving force behind every world-class sports person, as well as giving every child key life skills. I hope to see communities helping their local schools to run a range of competitions for all and for sport to be a high priority in the run up to 2012 and beyond.

Notes to editors

1. The coalition government is committed to reducing bureaucracy to give teachers the freedom they need to run their schools. As announced in October, the Department has lifted the many requirements of the previous Government’s PE and Sport Strategy, so giving schools the clarity and freedom to concentrate on competitive school sports. This included the need for schools to: * plan and implement a centralised approach to sport * collect information about every pupil for an annual survey * deliver a range of new Government sport initiatives each year * report termly to the Department on various performance indicators (the school sport; partnership self-review tool involves 115 tickboxes) * conform to a national blueprint for how to deliver PE and sport, and how to use their staff and resources * get permission from the Department to use their funding flexibly or to vary how they do things.
2. The new £65 million will be spread over 3 financial years: 2011-12 to 2013-14.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 15 December 2010.

Given recent questions about how the pupil premium will work it is significant and welcome news that the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) believe the premium is simple and transparent, and will benefit schools. The premium will start at £430 a year for every free school meals pupil, rising over the next four years. £2.5 billion will go to those students who need the most support.

A spokesman for the Department for Education said:

We welcome the IFS comments on our pupil premium. As they have recognised, the pupil premium is ‘simple and transparent’ and will mean that many schools will see real-term increases in their funding, with the most deprived schools benefiting the most.

Through the premium we will provide £430 extra funding for every child on free school meals next year and this figure will continue to increase over the next four years. The money will go straight to schools and they will be free to decide how best to use it to help the poorest pupils increase their attainment.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 15 December 2010.

Responding to reports about the Institute for Fiscal Studies analysis of the EMA, the Department for Education said:

Around 90 per cent of pupils receiving the EMA would still go to college or sixth form even if it didn’t exist, according to research from both the IFS and NFER.

We have consistently made it clear we will still provide support for the 10 per cent of young people who really need help to stay in post-16 education, through substantially increasing the size of the discretionary learner support fund.

In these tough economic times, we simply do not have the luxury of being able spend hundreds of millions on a programme that doesn’t see results in return for the majority of the money spent.

We must bring down the huge national debt, otherwise the economy cannot recover. If we don’t, it will be young people who pay the price when firms can’t begin recruiting new workers.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 14 December 2010.

The Social Work Reform Board (SWRB) today set out to social workers what working conditions they should expect from their employers, as it published proposals to put social workers on a greater professional footing and reform their education.

The standards of supervision and support social workers should expect from their employers include:

• making sure the right number of social workers with the right level of skills and experience are available to meet the level of demand
• managing workloads and caseloads so that social workers are not overworked
• giving social workers the practical resources they need to do their jobs
• creating development opportunities for social workers to give them greater experience and skills

The board is also setting out for the first time a single, national set of professional standards outlining what social workers are expected to do at every point in their career and what level of service the public can expect from them. This brings the profession in line with other public sector professionals like doctors, nurses and teachers.

Social work education should also be reformed to improve the quality of social work degrees, with more rigorous selection criteria. The Board recommends that the design of social work courses should involve people who have experienced social services, so that the training properly reflects the real-life reality of the job.

Moira Gibb, CBE, Chair of the Social Work Reform Board and Chief Executive of the London Borough of Camden, said:

A year ago the Social Work Task Force recommended comprehensive reform of the social work system so that in the future, social workers are more consistently able to practise confidently and safely. Since then, the Social Work Reform Board has been working to make the task force’s recommendations a reality.

This report, the first from the Social Work Reform Board, marks a staging post in the journey of social work reform and a foundation for helping us, together, to deliver a better future for social work. The proposals published today should help every individual social worker, every employer of social workers and everyone who educates or trains social workers to do their work better in the interests of those who need and use social work.

The government supports the work of the Social Work Reform Board and is urging the sector to become involved in the next steps towards implementing these important and necessary changes.

Tim Loughton, Children’s Minister, said:

I welcome the Social Work Reform Board’s proposals, which are an important step for social workers to gain the status and respect they so rightly deserve. We are committed to making a real difference to frontline social work and to implementing the Social Work Reform Board’s recommendations. That is why in the new year we will be announcing significant funding to implement the reforms and Professor Munro’s recommendations to improve child protection.

Social workers perform an invaluable job that all too often gets overlooked and taken for granted. They need all the professional support and advice possible so that they feel confident they are making the right decisions.

I thank Moira Gibb and the Reform Board for all the work they have done over the last year. This strongly supports the changes that Professor Munro is advising and will ensure social workers can progress in their careers and feel proud of the vital job they do every day.

Paul Burstow, Care Services Minister, said:

The Social Work Task Force brought forward a number of ideas to improve the social work profession, and this Government has made clear that reform of social work is a priority.

The work of the sector-led Social Work Reform Board, and development of the College of Social Work, will ensure that the task force’s recommendations to improve the profession will become a reality.

David Willetts, Minister for Universities and Science, said:

I welcome the first anniversary report of the Social Work Reform Board’s progress in implementing the recommendations of the Social Work Task Force. This is an important step towards achieving the necessary fundamental and long-term reform of the social work system. I encourage the social work profession to respond positively to the proposals set out in the report.

The reforms will affect the profession, service users and carers as well as organisations that educate and employ social workers. The Social Work Reform Board is seeking views on its proposals until 31 March 2011.

The statement made by Michael Gove, the then Secretary of State for Education, in the House of Commons on 13 December 2010.

Today I am announcing local authority allocations for their Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) and capital for 2011-12 and for the Early Intervention Grant in 2011-12 and 2012-13.

Schools

I can confirm that, as proposed in our consultation, we will continue with the current distribution method for funding local authorities.

As signalled in the consultation, we are simplifying the funding system by mainstreaming relevant grants into the DSG on the same per-pupil distribution as this year. 2011-12 Guaranteed Units of Funding (GUFs) are therefore the sum of 2010-11 GUFs and the per-pupil grant allocations. This means that at local authority, level allocations for school funding are flat cash per pupil for 2011-12.

To protect those local authorities that have falling pupil numbers, I have put in place arrangements so that no authority will lose more than 2 per cent of its budget in cash terms compared with 2010-11.

Following this announcement, local authorities will now be able to work with their schools forums to produce 2011-12 budgets for their maintained schools. This will include resources from grants mainstreamed into DSG. Local authorities will be required to take account of the previous level of these grants in constructing their settlement for schools. This is to prevent turbulence for those schools who have previously received funding through grants that we are mainstreaming. Although the overall schools budget before the addition of the pupil premium will stay at the same level per pupil, the actual level of budget for each individual school will vary. It will depend on local decisions about how best to meet needs. This does mean that some individual schools may see cash cuts in their budgets; either because they have fewer pupils or because changes are made within local authorities to the distribution of funding. I have, therefore, decided to apply a national protection arrangement for schools – the minimum funding guarantee – and have set it so that no school will see a reduction compared with its 2010-11 budget (excluding sixth form funding) of more than 1.5 per cent per pupil before the pupil premium is applied. The guarantee applies to a school’s overall 2010-11 budget including grants that have been mainstreamed into DSG.

Capital

The capital settlement for my department was extremely tight, with a 60 per cent reduction in 2014-15 compared to the historic high of 2010-11. I know that there are schools in need of refurbishment which have missed out from previous Government capital programmes, and who feel they have therefore been treated unfairly. I will continue to invest in the school estate. Indeed we are investing £15.8 billion of capital over the Spending Review period, and the average annual capital budget over the period will be higher than the average annual capital budget in the 1997-98 to 2004-05 period. However, over the next few years our priority is to reduce this country’s budget deficit. This is essential, as the amount we are currently spending on debt interest payments could be used to rebuild or refurbish ten schools every day. However, I realise that in the short term it will be difficult for schools to adjust to reduced capital funding.

The recommendations from the Sebastian James review of DfE’s capital programmes will inform the allocation of capital from 2012-13. But schools and local authorities need information now on capital for 2011-12 so that they can begin to plan. I am today announcing the allocation of £2137m1 of capital funding for schools in 2011-12.

There are two particular pressures we face which have informed how I have allocated this funding. First, I have inherited substantial forward commitments for the Building Schools for the Future, Academy and myplace projects which I did not stop in July. Energetic efforts are being made by local authorities, contractors and others to reduce the cost of these projects, but I expect the cost of these commitments to remain significant over the Spending Review period. If the Building Schools for the Future programme had not been stopped there would have been no additional funding for schools outside that programme or for urgently needed primary school places.

Second, there are significant pressures for additional school places, particularly at primary age, in many areas of the country because of rising birth rates and changed migration patterns. In 2011-12, £800m will be available to local authorities to address the need to provide additional school places. I have doubled the amount to be spent on what is called basic need from the levels spent by the previous Government. I recognise that this issue needs to be addressed and I am supporting local areas to do so.

Even where funding is tight, it is essential that buildings and equipment are properly maintained, to ensure that health and safety standards are met, and to prevent a backlog of decay building up which is very expensive to address. Therefore, in 2011-12, £1337m will be available for capital maintenance for schools2, with over 1bn being allocated for local areas to prioritise according to maintenance need. The voluntary-aided sector will receive its fair share of this as I have decided to retain the Locally Coordinated VA Programme for a further year.

In addition, £195m will be allocated directly to schools3 for their own use. This is a much lower rate than previously. The Audit Commission criticised the allocation of large amounts of funding to schools that was not targeted to building need. Therefore, in view of the need to prioritise, I have balanced the bulk of maintenance funding to local authorities, to support local prioritisation and larger projects, with coordinated and efficient procurement.

Details of the allocations of basic need and maintenance funding to each authority, and indicative amounts of the capital allocations for their schools, are being sent to local authorities today and published on the website. I shall also make copies available in the parliamentary libraries.

I know that for longer term planning, local authorities would welcome further security on their capital funding from 2012-13. As I have said, the capital review will inform funding from 2012-13. However, whilst the methodology of allocation and management of the capital funding may change, I can confirm that the headline annual amounts of funding for basic need and for maintenance will for 2012-13 until 2014-15 be in line with the amounts I have announced today for 2011-12.

Local Authority Early Intervention Grant

In challenging times the Government is freeing local authorities to focus on essential frontline services, and to invest in early intervention and prevention to produce long-term savings and better results for children, young people and families. A key element of this approach is the creation of a new Early Intervention Grant for local authorities in England, worth £2212m in 2011-12 and £2297m in 2012-13. It replaces a number of former funding streams, which are listed in a note on my department’s website. In a tight funding settlement, some reduction in central government support was inevitable. In 2011-12, the amount to be allocated through EIG is 10.9 per cent lower than the aggregated 2010-11 funding through the predecessor grants. The new grant will however provide a substantial funding stream, with new flexibility to enable local authorities to act more strategically and target investment early, where it will have the greatest impact.

Universal, as well as specialist, services have an important role to play in identifying and supporting families who need extra help before problems escalate, and helping them get more intensive support if needed. Our schools, health services, police and other services should all be concerned to spot and support the most vulnerable families early. There are great examples of effective partnerships which already do this across the country.

I want to draw attention to two important aspects of the new grant. The first is the Government’s commitment to trusting professionals and creating local flexibility. Greater freedom at local level, to pool and align funding, will help local authorities and their partners achieve better results. That is why we have scrapped top-down performance management, and why we are reducing radically the number of ring-fenced grants. The Spending Review signalled a power shift between central and local government – ensuring local communities have a greater say in the issues that affect them. The EIG is not ring-fenced, giving local authorities the flexibility to respond to local needs and drive reform, while supporting a focus on early intervention across the age range.

The second key point is the Government’s commitment to investment and reform in early intervention at a time of financial constraint. Against the background of greater flexibility to decide priorities locally, there are key areas of early intervention where the Government is ensuring that the overall grant provides support:

a. Sure Start children’s centres. There is enough money in the EIG to maintain the existing network of Sure Start Children’s Centres, accessible to all but identifying and supporting families in greatest need. Local authorities continue to have duties under the Childcare Act 2006 to consult before opening, closing or significantly changing children’s centres and to secure sufficient provision to meet local need and Together for Children will be ready to assist LAs in making plans to keep centres open. Important new investment through Department of Health budgets to provide 4200 extra health visitors, working alongside outreach and family support workers, will enable stronger links with local health services.

b. Two-year-olds. Evidence shows that early education is particularly beneficial for the most disadvantaged, for whom gaps in attainment start to appear as early as 22 months. We want to make sure that the poorest two-year-olds are given the best start, and subject to Parliamentary approval, have committed to extending free early education with an entitlement for disadvantaged two-year-olds from 2013, funded by an additional £300 million a year by 2014-15. £64m and £223m will be available through the EIG over the next two years so that authorities can build capacity and quality. Local authorities must still have regard to their statutory duties under the Childcare Act 2006 to provide information, training and advice to all providers of early education; quality matters and a highly skilled workforce is critical if we are to have a positive impact on social mobility.

c. Short breaks for disabled children. Providing respite to the most vulnerable families improves their outcomes and reduces the cost of care. That is why we have included within the EIG £198m/£202m, at the same time as investing directly in the voluntary and community organisations that support this work.

The Early Intervention Grant is of course not limited to these areas. The grant underpins creative local approaches to local priorities, across the whole field of services for children, young people and families. Most Department for Education funding for services for young people will flow through EIG. As we maintain the commitment to raise the participation age to 18 by 2015, the grant will help local authorities to support vulnerable young people to engage in education and training, intervening early with those who are at risk of disengagement. This could include preventing young people from taking part in risky behaviour, like crime, substance misuse or teenage pregnancy, supporting young people at risk of mental health problems, and helping young people who have a learning difficulty or disability to participate and achieve. The grant will support transitional arrangements to ensure that young people have access to impartial careers guidance in advance of the all-age careers service being fully operational. EIG also provides an opportunity for local areas to pursue greater coherence of local services for families with complex needs who face the poorest outcomes and pose the greatest cost to local services. Local authorities will want to consider using EIG funds to support local action in support of the national campaign to improve outcomes for families with multiple and complex problems and reduce costs to welfare and public services.

We look forward to Graham Allen’s report on early intervention, which will identify best practice and suggest ways to make it more widespread, including through new funding mechanisms. We recognise that making the transition from the old grant regime, and investing in early intervention at a time when budgets are under pressure, will be demanding. We want to work in partnership with local government to make the case for investment in these vital areas of early intervention. To that end, we will continue to work with the sector, including organisations like C4EO, to develop and disseminate the evidence base. We will promote transparency by working with the sector to measure the key outcomes and incentivise reform and effectiveness through payment of local authorities and providers by results, working with a number of authorities to develop a fair and effective methodology.

I am writing to local authority chief executives, directors of children’s services, headteachers and chairs of governing bodies with details of this announcement. Copies of these letters with details of individual school and local authority allocations have been placed in libraries of both houses.

Other area-based and specific grants

This Government’s decision to prioritise and protect frontline spending on schools and to target local authority spending on vulnerable and deprived children, young people and families has meant that we have had to make some hard choices. As part of the local government announcement, we have confirmed that we are ending a number of education-related area-based and specific grants. The ending of these grants does not mean that we do not see a future role for local authorities in relation to schools. The White Paper, ‘The Importance of Teaching’ – which I recently published – makes clear that local authorities continue to have an important strategic role to play. Local authorities will need to prioritise services and look at opportunities for delivering services more cost effectively including through working in conjunction with other local authorities.

In other areas, although the current grants are ending, we do expect to continue to provide funding. The White Paper made clear that we are committed to improving music education. Darren Henley is currently conducting a review of music and we will make announcements about future music funding in the light of recommendations which arise from the review.

We want all families to be able to choose the right school for their child. We are therefore reviewing home-to-school transport so that we can better meet the needs of not only disadvantaged families, but all families, ensuring transport is properly targeted to those that need it most. In relation to the grant, which supports extended rights for free home-to-school travel, we will be announcing transition funding in the new year to enable local authorities to continue to deliver their duty in this area for the rest of this academic year, pending the outcome of the review.

Early Intervention Grant

Schools capital allocation

Schools funding settlement 2011-12 and pupil premium

This includes all taxpayer-funded schools, including in the VA sector, academies, city technology colleges and non-maintained special schools. The figure for local authority and voluntary-aided schools is £2039m.

This includes all taxpayer funded schools, including in the VA sector, academies, city technology colleges and non-maintained special schools. The figure for local authority schools is £858m and for voluntary-aided schools, £196m. Local authority maintenance allocations also include funding for maintenance of Sure Start children’s centers.

This includes all taxpayer-funded schools, including in the VA sector and academies. The figure for local authority and voluntary-aided schools is £185m.