Claire Coutinho: The department is taking actions to improve early identification and intervention for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), such as dyslexia, through the reforms outlined in the Schools White Paper and SEND and Alternative Provision Green Paper. These build on measures already in place to identify pupils who are facing challenges, including with literacy and reading, and to help...
Claire Coutinho: The department is supporting the Kinship charity to deliver up to 100 peer-to-peer support groups across England to support kinship carers. The recently published Independent Review of Children’s Social Care set out recommendations on how the government can support kinship families. The department is now considering these recommendations. We are working up a comprehensive response to the...
Claire Coutinho: We are committed to improving the cost, choice and accessibility of childcare, and have spent more than £20 billion over the last five years supporting families with the cost of childcare.
Claire Coutinho: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question. Childcare is of course enormously important, and it is this Conservative Government who have expanded the childcare offer successively over a number of years. Last year in the spending review, we set out an additional £500 million to come into the sector, and we are also supporting private providers with their energy bills this year.[Official...
Claire Coutinho: All local authorities, including those in rural areas, are subject to robust special educational needs and disabilities inspections, and Ofsted will shortly be announcing plans for a strengthened inspection framework. This is an area that both the Education Secretary and I are incredibly passionate about, and one which she knows from her time as a Health Minister and I know from my time as...
Claire Coutinho: I would like to thank my hon. Friend for a productive discussion last week. I absolutely agree with her—I know she is a former teacher—that empowering schools is crucial to ensure we have the right provision for SEND children in rural areas. The SEND and AP Green Paper proposed new standards based on the evidence of what works to make sure that local schools feel the sense of empowerment...
Claire Coutinho: I will be happy to look into that in detail and write to the right hon. Gentleman further about it, but I would say that the Department is working to improve all schools in terms of SEND needs across different sectors and we are working with all of them.
Claire Coutinho: If the hon. Lady had been listening, she would know that I just said we will be publishing early in the new year; if she was not just reading out a scripted question, she might have cottoned on to that point. This is an important area. I have many affected constituents so have seen all of this first hand, as I have in previous roles and from talking to parents across the country. We want to...
Claire Coutinho: We are making a transformational investment in SEND places by investing £2.6 billion between 2022 and 2025 to help deliver new places and improve existing provision for children and young people with SEND or who require alternative provision as well as up to 60 new special and AP free schools.
Claire Coutinho: My hon. Friend is a doughty campaigner for Wiltshire and I applaud the council on the work it is doing. Ofsted is revising its framework on this area, which was set out in the Green Paper earlier this year. My hon. Friend might be interested to know that we are also looking at better local and national dashboards to improve local accountability.
Claire Coutinho: My hon. Friend is right that many parents find the system adversarial. That is one of the key things we are seeking to address by making what parents can expect much clearer and by simplifying and digitising their EHCP—education, health and care plan—application process, among our other measures. Meanwhile, Leicestershire will continue to be supported through its delivering better value...
Claire Coutinho: My hon. Friend has spoken to me multiple times about the excellent school provision in his area, and I would be delighted to visit and see more for myself.
Claire Coutinho: We absolutely need to address the plight of low-income families struggling with the system when their children have SEND. The amount of funding that has gone into the SEND high needs block has risen by 40% over the last three years, so we are putting the funding in, but we absolutely need to ensure that it is going to the right families.
Claire Coutinho: I point to the £2 billion extra funding that is going into the schools system next year and the year after as well as the huge increase of funding that I just mentioned going into the SEND sector.
Claire Coutinho: As I have mentioned, there is extra money going into the schools system, which was set out in the autumn statement. The energy relief scheme, which is helping schools with their energy bills, will also last throughout the winter.
Claire Coutinho: It is absolutely tragic that anyone might spend that amount of time outside of school. In March we announced £1.4 billion of high needs provision capital allocations, of which Worcestershire is receiving just over £10.7 million between 2022 and 2024 to help create new places in both mainstream and special schools. It is up to the local authority to determine how best to use that funding....
Claire Coutinho: The Department has significantly expanded the number of fully funded initial teacher training places in early years for the next academic year, and it is reviewing the level-3 qualification criterion for early years, both of which are part of our package of £180 million-worth of support.[Official Report, 6 December 2022, Vol. 724, c. 3MC.]
Claire Coutinho: I know that my hon. Friend is a huge supporter of Jelly Babies, both the nursery and otherwise. The Government are supporting early years professionals with £180 million for qualifications and specific training, such as on dealing with challenging behaviour following the pandemic and on early communication.[Official Report, 6 December 2022, Vol. 724, c. 3MC.]
Claire Coutinho: As I said in answer to earlier questions, we put an extra £0.5 billion into the early years sector in the 2021 spending review to increase the hourly rate. We are also spending money on qualifications and training for teachers. This sector is very important to us, and we continue to consider all the ways we can support it.[Official Report, 6 December 2022, Vol. 724, c. 4MC.]
Claire Coutinho: We have set out the announcements on funding for SEND, which, as I said, has increased by 40% over the past three years for the high needs block funding. We have also set out spending on capital grants. We are setting out early next year our proposals for the SEND and alternative provision Green Paper to make sure that that money is spent well.