Tag: Royston Smith

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-03-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of the year 7 catch-up premium in raising pupil attainment at GCSE level.

Mr Sam Gyimah

Since 2012 we have provided £500 per pupil funding to secondary schools for year 7 pupils who did not meet the expected standard in reading or mathematics at primary school. This funding enables schools to deliver additional support, such as individual tuition or intensive support in small groups, for those pupils that most need it.

It is not possible to make an assessment of the effectiveness of the year 7 catch-up premium in raising pupil attainment at GCSE level, as the first cohort of pupils to benefit from this funding in 2012 will now be in year 10 and have not yet entered GCSEs.

We provide advice and guidance to schools on how they should use their funding and have published guidance on literacy and numeracy catch-up strategies which schools can consult when making decisions on how to spend their funding. Schools must publish details of how they spend their year 7 catch-up premium funding on the school website.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-04-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans she has for the National Curriculum when all schools become academies.

Nick Gibb

In 2014 the Government introduced a new, more rigorous national curriculum which was developed with regard to the views of subject experts and teachers and to the findings of international best practice comparisons.

A system where every school is an academy will mean that the national curriculum will be a benchmark. It will serve an important role in setting out the level of knowledge-based, academically rigorous education which every child should experience.

If academies or Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs) want to deliver the national curriculum in their schools, they can do so confidently. The Government wants academies to use their freedoms to innovate and build challenging, tailored curricula to meet the particular needs of their pupils, their local area or the particular ethos of the school.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-04-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the average level of funding for GPs in (a) Southampton City Clinical Commissioning Group, (b) comparator clinical commissioning groups and (c) England was in each of the last 3 years.

Alistair Burt

Data from the Health and Social Care Information Centre show that the funding for general practitioners (GPs) in Southampton City Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) was £31,892,320 in 2013/14 and £33,578,245 in 2014/15.

The comparator CCGs fall into the area of Wessex. The average level of funding for GPs in comparator CCGs was £40,243,811 in 2013/14 and £43,300,640 in 2014/15.

The average level of funding for GPs in England was £36,169,099 in 2013/14 and £37,868,835 in 2014/15.

Data is not available for earlier years.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-06-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the average proportion of GP’s working time spent outside of the surgery is.

Alistair Burt

The information is not held centrally. As general practitioners (GPs) are independent contractors, it is for each practice to determine how they run their practice in order to meet the reasonable needs of their patients.

The Department commissions a GP Worklife Survey and this is carried out by the Manchester Centre for Health Economics at the University of Manchester on behalf of the Policy Research Unit in Commissioning and the Healthcare System (PRUComm).

In 2015, respondents were asked to indicate how much of their time was spent on external meetings, for example, meetings of the clinical commissioning group. Responses show that GPs spend 8.4% of their time on administration, 3.5% on external meetings and 6.3% on other activities.

The full report can be found at:

http://www.population-health.manchester.ac.uk/healtheconomics/research/Reports/EighthNationalGPWorklifeSurveyreport/EighthNationalGPWorklifeSurveyreport.pdf

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-06-13.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what the life expectancy is of residents of the (a) Southampton City, (b) NHS West London, (c) NHS North Manchester and (d) West Hampshire clinical commissioning group areas.

Mr Rob Wilson

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-07-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the effect of local sustainability and transformation plans on geographical variations in stroke care.

George Freeman

Health economies have come together to develop Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs) for their footprints until 2020/21. As with the current arrangements for planning and delivery, there are layers of plans which can sit below STPs, with shared links and dependencies. STPs do not replace the existing system architecture or provide details on all individual clinical areas. Rather STPs act as an umbrella, holding underneath them a number of different specific plans to address key local issues. As such, for conditions such as Stroke, it is not expected that STPs will provide great levels of detail regarding all the Stroke related activity occurring across the Footprint.

Visibility will be provided through other mechanisms such as audits. Stroke data is collected by the national audit from all trusts and reported at both trust and clinical commissioning group (CCG) level. The Royal College of Physicians which runs the audit has not done an analysis to compare services between rural and urban CCGs. However the data is available in the public domain for researchers should they wish to do so.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-10-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many families have been assisted by the Troubled Families programme in Southampton.

Mr Marcus Jones

In Southampton, the local authority achieved significant outcomes with 685 families under the first Troubled Families Programme (2012 – 2015).

In the new Troubled Families Programme (2015 – 2020), they have so far engaged 1,065 families. This means that each of these families has a named key worker or lead worker, a full assessment of the problems they face and an agreed plan with stretching goals to tackle all of these problems.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-03-04.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he is taking to improve (a) productivity across the Civil Service and (b) efficient use of office space.

Matthew Hancock

Improving the efficiency and productivity of the public sector is central to the work of the Cabinet Office. By 2014/15 the Government had saved £18.6 billion through efficiency and reform, and tackling fraud, error and uncollected debt (against a 2009/10 baseline).

The Government Hubs programme will reduce the government office estate from around 800 buildings to around 200 by 2023 and generate savings of over £2bn over ten years.

This is being supported by a smart working revolution to transform how and where civil servants work. In line with what many private sector organisations have achieved, we expect this to increase productivity, reduce costs, improve wellbeing, and contribute to wider objectives such as localism, sustainability, and reducing pressure on the transport system.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-03-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will ensure that (a) training and (b) emotional support is given to carers who work in residential homes.

Alistair Burt

Improving the capability of the care workforce through continued skills development is a vital investment in the future. This applies to the workforce as a whole but is particularly important for those working in residential homes.

Ultimately, it is the responsibility of employers to ensure their staff are suitably trained and appropriately supported to undertake the roles for which they are employed.

The Department is working closely with our delivery partners to support employers in improving the level of skills of the workforce and is spending significant levels of funding to support this work.

The introduction of the Care Certificate is delivering specific standards for the training of new care workers.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-03-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that the UK meets its renewed target of zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Andrea Leadsom

The Government believes we will need to take the step of enshrining the global goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions in the second half of the century, agreed in Paris, into UK law. The question is not whether but how we do it.

The Government also remains committed to its existing Climate Change Act target of an at least 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 on 1990 levels. Our working assumption is that we will publish our Emissions Reduction Plan by the end of 2016, which will set out our proposals for meeting our Climate Change Act targets.