Tag: Sharon Hodgson

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sharon Hodgson on 2016-04-29.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the potential effect of the academisation of all schools on the provision of sex and relationship education in maintained secondary schools; and whether she plans to introduce a requirement on academies to provide sex and relationship education.

Edward Timpson

All maintained secondary schools are required to teach sex and relationship education and we also expect academies to teach it as part of a broad and balanced curriculum.

When any school, including academies, teaches SRE, they must have regard to the Secretary of State’s statutory Sex and Relationship Education Guidance (2000). The guidance makes clear that all SRE lessons should be age-appropriate and that schools should ensure young people develop positive values and a moral framework that will guide their decisions, judgments and behaviour.

Academies and free schools must have regard to the SRE guidance further to section 403 of the Education Act 1996. The model funding agreement can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/academy-and-free-school-funding-agreements-single-academy-trust

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sharon Hodgson on 2015-11-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential effect of proposed changes to Tier 2 visas on the recruitment of people with specific skills from overseas to the video games industry.

James Brokenshire

The Government has commissioned the independent Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to advise on restricting Tier 2 to genuine skills shortages and jobs which require highly-specialised experts, but with sufficient flexibility to include high value roles and key public service workers. There are 18 jobs in the video games industry currently included on the Shortage Occupation List.

The MAC is looking at selection criteria such as, but not limited to, salaries, particular attributes, economic need and skills level. The MAC is not due to report until December and we do not yet know what its findings and recommendations will be. We await the report with interest and will consider it carefully before making any significant changes to the Tier 2 route.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sharon Hodgson on 2015-12-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to the Independent Cancer Taskforce’s report entitled, Achieving world-class cancer outcomes, a strategy for England 2015 to 2020, published in July 2015, what (a) short-term and (b) long-term steps he plans to take to ensure that there is (i) sufficient capacity and (ii) the optimal skills mix within the cancer workforce.

Jane Ellison

NHS England is currently working with partners across the health system to determine how best to take forward the recommendations in the independent Cancer Taskforce’s report, Achieving world-class cancer outcomes: a strategy for England 2015 to 2020, and has appointed Cally Palmer CBE as NHS National Cancer Director to lead on managing implementation. She is currently setting up a new Cancer Transformation Board to lead the roll-out of the recommendations of the new strategy, including on workforce, and a Cancer Advisory Group, chaired by Dr Harpal Kumar, Chief Executive of Cancer Research UK, will oversee and scrutinise their work.

We announced in September that Health Education England (HEE) is developing a new national training programme for an additional 200 staff to get the skills and expertise to carry out endoscopies by 2018. The content of the next mandate from the Government to HEE is currently being determined.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sharon Hodgson on 2016-01-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how she plans to determine whether the Children and Families Act 2014 has successfully improved outcomes for children who have a disability but not a special educational need.

Edward Timpson

Local authorities have made good progress complying with the statutory special educational needs duties in the Children and Families Act 2014 since they came into force in September 2014. We continue to monitor progress.

All local authorities have published a Local Offer of the services and support available to children and young people in their area with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Responsibility for publishing and maintaining Local Offers lies with each local authority. The Department supports local authorities to help make sure they meet all statutory requirements for their Local Offer, and that the quality of services continues to improve.

In summer 2014, the Department conducted a review of Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans and plan templates from half of local authorities. The majority of the EHC plan templates we reviewed were judged likely to meet the requirements in the SEND Code of Practice. Where changes were needed, this was often due to inaccurate labelling of the required sections. Feedback was provided to individual local authorities alongside information to all local authorities about the key areas for focus. Since September 2014, EHC plans have been continually monitored. Where individual EHC plans are considered not to be fully compliant, advice on improvement is provided to the local authority.

Figures returned by local authorities and published in the Statements of SEN and EHC plans Statistical First Release[1] in May 2015 show that, of the 1,360 new EHC plans issued between 1 September 2014 and 15 January 2015, 64.3% were within the statutory 20 week time limit when excluding exception cases.

The Department for Education is providing specific additional funding to Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to support their inspection of the effectiveness of local areas in fulfilling their new SEND duties. We are in the process of setting individual budgets as part of our internal business planning process.

Ofsted and CQC conducted pilots as part of their wider consultation on their inspection proposals. These pilots explored different approaches to securing evidence in what is a complex area, involving a range of education, social care, and health providers at the local level. Ofsted and CQC will publish their response to the consultation on these new inspection arrangements in spring 2016. In addition, they will evaluate the impact of inspections, which will begin later in 2016.

The Department draws on a wide range of evidence to determine whether the SEND provisions of the Children and Families Act have improved outcomes for children. Our intention is that a combination of local accountability measures; data and analysis; and independent inspection will show how the SEND system is performing and whether outcomes are improving for children and young people.

The SEND inspections will evaluate local areas’ effectiveness in identifying and meeting the needs of children and young people. We will draw on a wide range of statistics[2], including information on educational attainment, absence and exclusions and research into families and young people’s experience of the new system.

A summary of the available data on SEN and disability is available at

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/472575/Special_educational_needs-_an_analysis_and_summary_of_data_sources.pdf

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/statements-of-sen-and-ehc-plans-england-2015

[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-special-educational-needs-sen

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sharon Hodgson on 2016-02-29.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much additional funding for 2016-17 her Department has allocated to (a) Ofsted and (b) the Care Quality Commission to support their inspection of the effectiveness of local areas in fulfilling their new special educational needs and disabilities duties.

Edward Timpson

For the financial year 2016-17, the department has allocated £1,057,675 of funding to Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission, in order to meet the costs of their inspections of local areas’ effectiveness in fulfilling their new special educational needs and disabilities duties.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sharon Hodgson on 2016-05-03.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will make an assessment of the effect of proposed reforms to the Cancer Drugs Fund on the provision in the NHS of (a) Avastin and (b) other drugs currently approved for off-licence use.

George Freeman

NHS England has advised that Avastin is currently funded through the Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) for three indications, all of which are off-label. It is also in the process of reviewing and setting up a system for assessing off-label drug indications. Each of the three off-label indications for Avastin will remain funded within the CDF until they have been assessed through the new process.

Clinicians can prescribe any treatment, including an unlicensed product or a product not licensed for a particular indication, which they consider the best available medicine to meet the individual clinical needs of their patient, subject to their primary care organisation agreeing to fund this treatment.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) produces Evidence Summaries which critically review the best available evidence for significant uses of unlicensed or off-label medicines. They help commissioners and clinicians to make evidence-based prioritisation, treatment and funding decisions where there are no clinically-appropriate licensed alternatives.

Ensuring that patients get timely access to any new treatment, including off-label medicines in new indications, is complex and the Department is committed to working with stakeholders including NICE, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the General Medical Council, patient and professional groups, and charities to co-ordinate activities and set plans in place that will make this easier. This includes work to look at more systematic inclusion of off-label uses of drugs in the British National Formulary and development of case studies looking at re-purposed medicines and their pathways from research results into clinical practice.

Alongside these, the Access to Medical Treatments (Innovation) Act will, in due course, provide the National Health Service with a newly created database which will provide a mechanism for collecting and sharing information on innovative treatments including off-label drugs and medicines in development. Now that the Act has received Royal Assent the work to implement its provisions can begin.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sharon Hodgson on 2015-11-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what assessment his Department has made of the appropriateness of the level of apprenticeship levy funding for (a) SMEs in general and (b) creative industry SMEs.

Nick Boles

My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will announce further details of the apprenticeship levy at the Spending Review, including the scope and rate.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sharon Hodgson on 2015-12-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions his Department has had with (a) NHS England and (b) Health Education England on recommendation 83 in the Independent Cancer Taskforce’s report entitled, Achieving world-class cancer outcomes, a strategy for England 2015 to 2020, published in July 2015, on producing a workforce review by the end of 2016.

Jane Ellison

NHS England is currently working with partners across the health system to determine how best to take forward the recommendations in the independent Cancer Taskforce’s report, Achieving world-class cancer outcomes: a strategy for England 2015 to 2020, and has appointed Cally Palmer CBE as NHS National Cancer Director to lead on managing implementation. She is currently setting up a new Cancer Transformation Board to lead the roll-out of the recommendations of the new strategy, including on workforce, and a Cancer Advisory Group, chaired by Dr Harpal Kumar, Chief Executive of Cancer Research UK, will oversee and scrutinise their work.

We announced in September that Health Education England (HEE) is developing a new national training programme for an additional 200 staff to get the skills and expertise to carry out endoscopies by 2018. The content of the next mandate from the Government to HEE is currently being determined.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sharon Hodgson on 2016-01-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what amount of additional funding her Department has allocated to Ofsted to carry out local area inspections of provisions for children with special educational needs and disability; and if so, what amount has been allocated for each of the next three years.

Edward Timpson

Local authorities have made good progress complying with the statutory special educational needs duties in the Children and Families Act 2014 since they came into force in September 2014. We continue to monitor progress.

All local authorities have published a Local Offer of the services and support available to children and young people in their area with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Responsibility for publishing and maintaining Local Offers lies with each local authority. The Department supports local authorities to help make sure they meet all statutory requirements for their Local Offer, and that the quality of services continues to improve.

In summer 2014, the Department conducted a review of Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans and plan templates from half of local authorities. The majority of the EHC plan templates we reviewed were judged likely to meet the requirements in the SEND Code of Practice. Where changes were needed, this was often due to inaccurate labelling of the required sections. Feedback was provided to individual local authorities alongside information to all local authorities about the key areas for focus. Since September 2014, EHC plans have been continually monitored. Where individual EHC plans are considered not to be fully compliant, advice on improvement is provided to the local authority.

Figures returned by local authorities and published in the Statements of SEN and EHC plans Statistical First Release[1] in May 2015 show that, of the 1,360 new EHC plans issued between 1 September 2014 and 15 January 2015, 64.3% were within the statutory 20 week time limit when excluding exception cases.

The Department for Education is providing specific additional funding to Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to support their inspection of the effectiveness of local areas in fulfilling their new SEND duties. We are in the process of setting individual budgets as part of our internal business planning process.

Ofsted and CQC conducted pilots as part of their wider consultation on their inspection proposals. These pilots explored different approaches to securing evidence in what is a complex area, involving a range of education, social care, and health providers at the local level. Ofsted and CQC will publish their response to the consultation on these new inspection arrangements in spring 2016. In addition, they will evaluate the impact of inspections, which will begin later in 2016.

The Department draws on a wide range of evidence to determine whether the SEND provisions of the Children and Families Act have improved outcomes for children. Our intention is that a combination of local accountability measures; data and analysis; and independent inspection will show how the SEND system is performing and whether outcomes are improving for children and young people.

The SEND inspections will evaluate local areas’ effectiveness in identifying and meeting the needs of children and young people. We will draw on a wide range of statistics[2], including information on educational attainment, absence and exclusions and research into families and young people’s experience of the new system.

A summary of the available data on SEN and disability is available at

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/472575/Special_educational_needs-_an_analysis_and_summary_of_data_sources.pdf

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/statements-of-sen-and-ehc-plans-england-2015

[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-special-educational-needs-sen

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sharon Hodgson on 2016-02-29.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 11 February 2016 to Question 25802, what the source of the data is on outcomes achieved by disabled children that her Department will use.

Edward Timpson

The source of the data published in the statistical first release Level 2 and 3 attainment by young people aged 19 is matched data from the Schools Census, Individualised Learner Record (ILR) data and information provided by awarding bodies. Any other data that is subsequently published will also use these data sources.