The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nic Dakin on 2016-01-25.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how the objectives for NHS England’s National Clinical Directors post April 2016 will be agreed.
George Freeman
From 1 April 2016, objectives for the National Clinical Directors will be set according to the priority areas and major programmes, as set out in the Mandate and planning guidance. They will relate, where appropriate, to established programmes of service improvement.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nic Dakin on 2016-02-24.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many applications her Department received to the first application round for the Future Teaching Scholars programme.
Nick Gibb
The Future Teaching Scholars programme received 50 applications in the first recruitment round. We remain confident that we will secure 110 scholars by the end of summer 2016.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nic Dakin on 2016-03-03.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions her Department has had with the Department for Transport on steps to meet the Government’s objective to increase the proportion of children walking to school from 46 per cent to 55 per cent.
Nick Gibb
The Department supports the Department for Transport’s target to increase the numbers of pupils walking to school. Local authorities have a duty to promote sustainable school travel and transport, and our statutory guidance on home to school transport states that strategies for encouraging walking should form part of that duty. Departmental officials have recently met the Living Streets Charity to discuss how we can further help local authorities in promoting walking to school and we continue to support and promote initiatives such as Living Streets, Modeshift and Sustrans both by engaging with consultations and through our guidance.
The guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/445407/Home_to_School_Travel_and_Transport_Guidance.pdf
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nic Dakin on 2016-04-13.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to paragraph 3.30 of Educational excellence everywhere, Cm 9230, when she plans to amend the academy articles of association models to remove the requirement for new academy trusts and school governing boards to elect parent governors; and if she will take steps to enable existing academies to make that change.
Edward Timpson
The model articles of association give multi-academy trust (MAT) boards the freedom to appoint a local governing body. The board is also free to decide on what, if any, governance functions they delegate to subsidiary governance structures at the level of either individual schools or clusters of schools. Whatever arrangements MATs use, they must set out and publish on their website their chosen arrangements in a clear scheme of delegation.
The White Paper Educational Excellence Everywhere outlines our intention to place a new expectation on all academies to put in place specific arrangements to engage with all parents in a meaningful way to listen to their views and feedback. To enable a move to fully skills-based governance, the White Paper also announces an end to our requirement on new and existing trusts to reserve places on the board for elected parents.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nic Dakin on 2016-05-03.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of 16 and 17 year olds participated in full-time education in England in (a) 2005 and (b) 2015.
Nick Gibb
The proportion of 16 and 17 year olds in full-time education in England was 70.3% at the end of 2005 and 82.2% at the end of 2014 (provisional figures). These figures are published in Table A7 of the ‘Additional tables – rates’ in the Statistical First Release (SFR) ‘Participation in education, training and employment’ and can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-neet
Figures for end 2015 are not yet available but will be published on 30th June 2016 as part of the above series.
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nic Dakin on 2016-05-23.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to paragraph 2.28 of the White Paper, Educational Excellence Everywhere, published in March 2016, when her Department plans to consult sector bodies on the proposed creation of centres for excellence for initial teacher training; and how that consultation will take place.
Nick Gibb
The Government’s White Paper, Educational Excellence Everywhere, confirmed that we intend to use a new set of quality criteria to determine how initial teacher training (ITT) places are allocated to training providers in future, ensuring that training is concentrated with the highest-quality providers. On the basis of these criteria, which will include factors such as the quality of trainees recruited, the quality of the training programmes, and the quality of outcomes for trainees, we will designate some providers as Centres of Excellence. We expect to set out further details of the quality criteria that will apply for the 2017/18 training year, and which providers will be designated as Centres of Excellence, when we confirm the methodology for allocating places, which is currently under discussion.
The Department for Education has actively been engaging the ITT sector in discussions about the proposals in the White Paper, including the establishment of ITT Centres of Excellence. Engagement to date has included a series of roundtable discussion events for university- and school-led providers and their representative bodies, such as the Universities’ Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET) and the National Association of School-Based Teacher Trainers (NASBTT).
We expect to confirm the allocations methodology for 2017/18 after further consultation with providers and their representative organisations over the summer, in time for the start of recruitment in the autumn term.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nic Dakin on 2016-09-06.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, to what extent NICE has involved external stakeholders and charities in reviewing how well the incremental cost effectiveness ratio is working in making new cancer medicines available to patients on the NHS.
Nicola Blackwood
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has advised that it has not been asked to review how well the application of the cost effectiveness methodology is working in making new cancer medicines available to patients on the National Health Service.
NICE periodically reviews its methods and processes for the development of guidance to ensure that they remain appropriate. NICE most recently consulted on changes to its methods for the appraisal of new cancer medicines in November 2015 as part of the consultation on the new operating model for the Cancer Drugs Fund.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nic Dakin on 2015-11-02.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many pupils (a) in each age group were enrolled at each university technical college (UTC) in the 2014-15 academic year and (b) were enrolled in each UTC in September 2015.
Nick Boles
Figures for the number of pupils enrolled in each UTC by age group are available in the underlying data of the ‘Schools, pupils and their characteristics: January 2015 statistics’, available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2015
The figures for the numbers of pupils enrolled in each UTC for the academic year 2015/16 are not yet available.
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nic Dakin on 2015-11-18.
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, what steps her Department has taken to embed the Family Test into its policy making.
Caroline Dinenage
Officials in my Department have liaised with the Department for Work and Pensions as the lead Department for the Family Test to embed it into the policy process. This has included training officials on applying the Test, disseminating relevant evidence, learning materials and best practice.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nic Dakin on 2016-01-13.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much her Department has spent on lawyers in cases relating to the release of departmental documents under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 in each year since 2010.
Nick Gibb
Legal costs relating to Freedom of Information are not held centrally by the Department and the cost of determining these over the past five years would exceed the disproportionate limit. The costs of internal lawyers’ time are not held in such a way that they can be separately identified.