Tag: Gordon Marsden

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gordon Marsden on 2015-12-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what consultations he or officials in his Department have had with (a) further education college representatives, (b) further education providers and (c) sector skills councils about the structures on board composition of the proposed Institute for Apprenticeships announced in the Spending Review and Autumn Statement 2015.

Nick Boles

The creation of the Institute for Apprenticeships has been informed by feedback from employers and employer groups such as the CBI, as well as organisations working alongside our employer-led trailblazers to develop new apprenticeship standards. This includes representatives of training providers and sector skills councils.

The chair and board members of the Institute will be appointed though a public appointments process in 2016.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gordon Marsden on 2016-01-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, whether the National Apprenticeship Service will continue to be (a) administered and (b) funded through the Skills Funding Agency in 2016-17.

Nick Boles

The National Apprenticeship Service is part of the Skills Funding Agency. We plan for this to continue to be the case in 2016-17.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gordon Marsden on 2016-02-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, whether he commissioned an independent evaluation of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills before deciding to withdraw funding from it; and if so, if he will publish it.

Nick Boles

No independent evaluation of UKCES was commissioned. The decision by Whitehall Departments to withdraw funding from UKCES during 2016-17 was taken as part of the spending review given the need to make savings in non-participation budgets to allow the core adult skills participation budgets to be protected in cash terms.

The decision had regard to the range of priorities needing to be funded from non-participation budgets. BIS is working with UKCES and the users of its services, including the Devolved Administrations, to manage the implications of this decision.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gordon Marsden on 2016-02-29.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what discussions he has had with Ofsted on assessing the quality of teaching English and mathematics in adult basic skills courses undertaken by (a) further education providers and (b) other providers.

Nick Boles

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is in regular contact with Ofsted both at Ministerial and official level to discuss the performance of further education (FE) colleges and providers. This includes the extent to which teaching, learning and assessment support adult learners to develop their skills in English and maths.

Together with Department for Education, we have invested over £30m over the past 3 years to fund a range of measures to improve the further education workforce, with a focus on improving the teaching of English and maths. This has resulted in over 1,000 bursaries to attract graduates to teach in further education and over 3,800 existing FE teachers have benefited from training to improve their capability to teach high quality English and maths courses.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gordon Marsden on 2016-03-22.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, pursuant to the Answer of 8 February 2016 to Question 25741, what criteria the Government plans to use to allocate the funds secured from the European Social Fund for the period 2014-2020.

Anna Soubry

EU regulations require the United Kingdom to spend at least 45.9 per cent of its national allocation for structural funds for the period 2014-2020 on the European Social Fund (ESF). The United Kingdom’s Partnership Agreement with the European Commission, which can be found on GOV.UK at ‘European Structural and Investment Funds: UK Partnership Agreement’, sets out how the requirement was met.

Within England, notional allocations for the European Regional Development Fund and ESF were made on the basis of Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) areas. The total allocations to each LEP area for the 2014-2020 period can be found on the GOV.UK website at ‘EU Structural Funds: UK allocations 2014 to 2020’. Each LEP area was asked how much it wanted to devote to the ESF, drawing on guidance issued by Government to ensure compliance with the regulatory requirements at national level. The guidance can also be found on the GOV.UK website. Iinformation on the Strategies for 2014-2020 prepared by each LEP area can be found on the website ‘The Network of LEPs-LEP Network’, searching by European funding. These set out how much each proposed should be spent on ESF in their area.

Management of EU structural funds is devolved. The Devolved Administrations decide the criteria for allocation of ESF within their remits, taking account of the need to meet EU regulatory requirements.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gordon Marsden on 2016-04-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on taking steps to tackle recent reductions in the number of employers posting apprenticeship vacancies.

Nick Boles

Latest data shows that whilst the number of employers advertising vacancies has fallen, the number of apprenticeship opportunities posted on the ‘Find an Apprenticeship’ website has increased each year from 71,060 in 2010/11 to 200,460 in 2014/15.

The Apprenticeship Delivery Board and Apprenticeship Ambassadors Network work with employers to champion apprenticeships and increase the number of places on offer. The Skills Funding Agency also works closely with the National Employer Services Team in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to encourage employers to offer apprenticeships.

We are launching a new apprenticeships communications campaign in May, jointly designed with DWP, which will promote the benefits of apprenticeships to young people, parents and employers. This will build on National Apprenticeship Week 2016, which saw more than 30,000 apprenticeship places pledged by businesses.

We also work closely with DWP to ensure that information about apprenticeship vacancies is available to jobseekers through Universal Jobmatch.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gordon Marsden on 2016-05-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what measures the Government has (a) planned and (b) implemented to monitor the effects of abolishing student maintenance grants on students that the equality impact analysis identified would be disproportionately affected by that policy.

Joseph Johnson

Replacing maintenance grants with loans for new full-time students in 2016/17 will ensure the higher education system remains financially sustainable whilst enabling the sector to make progress in widening participation amongst those from disadvantaged backgrounds. The Government will continue to monitor and evaluate a wide range of data and evidence relating to the Higher Education sector. This will include data on application and participation rates from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) and the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), as well as take-up and repayment rates of student financial support using Student Loans Company (SLC) data.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gordon Marsden on 2016-06-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what projections have been made of the number of EU students in receipt of student loans likely to be studying in England in (a) 2020, (b) 2030 and (c) 2040.

Joseph Johnson

The latest estimate of the number of EU students in England in receipt of undergraduate full and part-time fee loans is 45,000 in 2015/16.

The Government recognises the important contribution that international students make to the UK. Their presence brings an international outlook and diversity to UK university campuses, benefiting UK students and long term UK links post-graduation.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gordon Marsden on 2016-10-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent discussions she has had with employers and providers of apprenticeships on the effect on take-up of the new funding arrangements proposed for apprenticeships for 16 to 18 year olds, published on 12 August 2016.

Robert Halfon

Department for Education officials have held regular discussions with employers, training providers and representative organisations since the publication of the funding proposals in August. We will be publishing details of our final funding policy for apprenticeships in England from May 2017 shortly.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gordon Marsden on 2015-11-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what plans he has to apply the freeze of the student loan repayment threshold on which his Department has recently consulted to the repayment of 24+ Advanced Learner Loans.

Nick Boles

As set out in the consultation, because both higher education student loans and 24+ Advanced Learning Loans share a repayment threshold, the change will equally affect both groups of learners.

The Spending Review announced that the Government has decided to implement a repayment threshold freeze for all borrowers with post-2012 (‘Plan 2’) loans. The repayment threshold will be £21,000 at April 2016, and it will not be uplifted until at least April 2021, when the threshold will be reviewed. This threshold remains higher in real terms than that of the loans taken out before 2012.