Tag: Lord Storey

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Storey on 2015-12-03.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what criteria they use in auditing compliance with Tier 4 licences for non-EU students.

Lord Bates

All Tier 4 licensed sponsors are assessed against criteria set out in the published Tier 4 Guidance for Sponsors. This includes the following four documents:

• Document one – Applying for a Tier 4 licence
• Document two – Sponsorship Duties
• Document three – Tier 4 Compliance
• Appendix D – record keeping

Some of the key criteria includes:

• Ensuring that each sponsor has a genuine and lawful trading presence.
• Ensuring that each sponsor holds the appropriate education oversight with the relevant external inspection body.
• Compliance visits; where checks are undertaken to establish whether an institution’s HR functions are appropriate.
• An annual basic compliance assessment (BCA); where the sponsor must meet demonstrate that their visa refusal, enrolment and course completion rates fall within the outlined requisites.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Storey on 2016-01-13.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether there are legal implications for a business that advertises on the internet to write a student’s essay or dissertation, which the student then pays for and submits as their own work for academic accreditation.

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park

The Government strongly condemns any form of cheating. All publicly funded providers of higher education courses are expected to comply with the UK Quality Code for Higher Education, published by the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA). One of the requirements of the Code is to ensure that students do not obtain awards through any form of unacceptable academic practice relating to assessment, including plagiarism.

There is no centrally held set of data on the number of recorded plagiarism cases in UK Higher Education – responsibility for tackling plagiarism lies with the HE providers themselves, as autonomous organisations.

Institutions have a variety of mechanisms to address cheating by both international and EEA/UK students, including strong policies and specialist software. Between 2012 and 2015, the QAA carried out approximately 650 reviews of institutions. Of these, it only had to make recommendations to 30 individual universities and colleges on the need to improve systems and information related to plagiarism.

The QAA are discussing the legality of essay mills with the Consumer and Markets Authority.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Storey on 2016-01-21.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the planned process and timetable for consideration of a national funding formula for schools in England.

Lord Nash

We are committed to ending the unfair funding system that means children with the same needs attract different amounts of money simply because of where they live. As we announced at the Spending Review, we intend to do that by introducing a fair national funding formula in 2017. This would be a significant reform, and we will carry out a full formal consultation later this year.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Storey on 2016-02-03.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the budget of each Regional School Commissioner; who scrutinises and audits those budgets; how many staff are employed by each Commissioner; and whether those Commissioner budgets are made publicly available at the end of each financial year, and if so, how.

Lord Nash

Each Regional Schools Commissioner (RSC) has an annual budget of approximately £560k for the 2015-16 financial year. This consists of a programme budget of £40k per region and an administration budget of approximately £520k. The programme budget is to cover costs related to events and other communications activities. The administration budget is for staff costs, for example salary and travel. In addition, each RSC also has a Head Teacher Board (HTB) budget of approximately £100k annually to recompense the HTB members’ employer for loss of staff time.

There are a number of other budgets that are used to support the work of the RSCs and the delivery of the academies and free schools programmes, but these are not held by the RSCs themselves.

In line with the Department for Education’s internal review and governance arrangements, RSCs are required to provide financial reports each month, as well as an assurance statement at year end. Their budgets are included within the annual financial scrutiny and audit of the DfE accounts carried out by internal audit and externally scrutinised by the National Audit Office (NAO).

At present, each RSC office employs between 8 and 10 members of staff. The RSC and their office’s salary information are included within the Department’s salary details published on GOV.UK.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Storey on 2016-02-23.

To ask the Chairman of Committees, further to the Written Answer by the Chairman of Committees on 11 February (HL5625), whether agency staff are paid the London Living Wage for the first eight weeks of their employment; and if not, what hourly rate are they paid.

Lord Laming

In accordance with the terms of the House’s London Living Wage accreditation, all agency staff are paid at least the London Living Wage rate from day 1 of week 9 if they are working on parliamentary premises and employed for at least two hours of work in a week, for 8 consecutive weeks in a year.

The Administration does not hold information about specific hourly rates paid by agencies in weeks 1-8 as we pay a rate to the agency not the individuals; however, our recruitment framework agreement contractual terms stipulate that our contractors pay a rate that is at least the national minimum wage, and wherever possible we want agency staff to receive a salary commensurate with that which would have been paid to a permanent member of staff.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Storey on 2016-04-13.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have any plans to increase oversight of or the level of responsibility in home-schooling in the light of the 40 per cent rise in home-schooled students of secondary-school age over the last three years.

Lord Nash

I refer the Lord Storey to the answer to parliamentary question HL6799, submitted to Parliament on 14 March 2016, which states that:

“Some local authorities maintain voluntary registers of children educated at home but as they have no statutory basis, they cannot be regarded as an authoritative source of data.”

We continue to receive representations from local authorities and other stakeholders on this subject, but at present the responsibilities of parents and local authorities remain as in previous years.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Storey on 2016-05-24.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what measures are in place to ensure that existing secondary schools in areas where a new school is planned do not suffer from inappropriate competition for places or other disadvantages.

Lord Nash

The Department for Education’s published document ‘Free schools applications: criteria for assessment’ sets out the criteria which will be used to assess proposals to establish new free schools. This document is attached.

Prior to the school opening, the Secretary of State considers the impact the new school will have on all schools in the area in which the institution is proposed.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Storey on 2016-06-20.

To ask the Chairman of Committees whether he has considered recommending to the relevant Committee of the House of Lords that at times of great national tragedies the House could hear inclusive prayers that reflect the national mood of grief and caring.

Lord Laming

The Noble Lord may wish to take informal soundings about this possibility and to consider writing to the Convenor of the Lords Spiritual and Procedure Committee with a proposal.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Storey on 2016-07-07.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they expect to complete the training review, publication and roll-out of training programmes on the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative, and the Women, Peace and Security Agenda, for training delivered (1) in the UK to military officers from overseas, and (2) to foreign military forces.

Earl Howe

Our Armed Forces already undertake high quality training on Women, Peace and Security (WPS) and the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative (PSVI) but a training needs analysis (TNA), which will report shortly, is assessing the level of future WPS/PSVI training required for UK and overseas militaries. Every year around 150 military officers from more than 50 countries attend UK Defence Academy courses that include lectures on WPS; and students on the Advanced Command and Staff Course are offered an additional two week ‘elective’ on "Gender, War, and Armed Forces", which some of the overseas officers choose to attend.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) is also delivering WPS and PSVI in-country training to foreign militaries through the deployment of short term training teams and deployable experts, and via our overseas training establishments. The MOD is developing a standardised core syllabus for the training on WPS and PSVI delivered to foreign forces, which is expected to be finalised in January 2017. Building on the core syllabus, the training is then theatre-specific and tailored to the needs of troops being deployed, based on the level of training they have already received.

The MOD does not routinely publish its training materials but, as part of an accreditation process, it will share course materials with allies in NATO, the European Union, and the United Nations.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Storey on 2016-09-15.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many illegal schools have been closed down, and how many people have been prosecuted for running an illegal school, in each of the last five years.

Lord Nash

We are determined to keep children safe in and out of school and have made it very clear that it is an offence to operate an unregistered independent school. We announced in January funding for Ofsted to establish a dedicated team of specialist inspectors to investigate such settings. Since that time, there’s been a significant escalation in Ofsted investigations of settings, which has resulted in the closure of many.

However, the numbers of unregistered schools, including closures fluctuates all the time as new ones come to our attention, existing ones are closed down, or are confirmed as not operating as schools. Such settings also proceed to go through the registration process and may be operating in some capacity, but on a part-time basis which is not an offence.

No prosecutions have yet been taken but we are working closely with Ofsted and the Crown Prosecution Service on taking forward prosecutions of individuals running them, where appropriate.