Written questions by Trott.

Whether she plans to publish an impact assessment of the decision for Ofsted to no longer produce single headline grades.

On 2 September, the government announced that the use of single headline grades for Ofsted’s school inspection would end with immediate effect, and that a new system of report cards would be launched from September 2025. Single headline grades were overly simplistic, being low information for parents and high stakes for schools.Ofsted’s Big Listen consultation, the largest in Ofsted’s history, evidenced widespread concerns about single headline grades and the need for reform. Ofsted found that single headline grades were supported by only 3 in 10 professionals and 4 in 10 parents. The schools section of the consultation found that only 1 in 8 respondents agreed that the number of good and outstanding providers was reflective of the overall quality of the sector. Therefore, it was right for the government to act quickly and decisively to address this.The department is currently engaging closely with Ofsted to develop proposals for new reporting arrangements, through a report card system, to capture the performance of schools in a much richer way, and to provide more helpful information to parents and support school improvement. The new reporting system will be accompanied by improved support arrangements through Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence teams. Proposals for the new arrangements will be subject to public consultation in the new year.An equalities impact assessment will be carried out as part of the process of reform in the usual way.

With reference to her oral statement on Children’s Social Care of 18 November 2024, Official Report, column 23, what estimate her Department has made of the cost of her proposed reforms.

The department published ‘Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive’ on 18 November, setting out our vision for reform to children’s social care. Our legislative proposals will keep families together and children safe, remove barriers to opportunity for children in care and care leavers, make the care system child-centred, and tackle profiteering.To deliver reform across children’s social care, the department announced £44 million for 2025/26 at the Autumn Budget 2024 to support children in kinship and foster care, and £90 million to provide safe and suitable homes for some of the most vulnerable children and young people.The government has confirmed its commitment to further reforms to children’s social care in future spending reviews, to make sure every child, irrespective of background, has the best start in life.

If her Department will take steps to increase the use of Deprivation of Liberty orders.

Depriving a child of their liberty must always be a last resort in order to keep the child safe. A growing number of children in England and Wales, often with complex behavioural needs, are being deprived of their liberty through Deprivation of Liberty Orders (DOLOs) under the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court, due to a lack of suitable registered placements.The department would like to see fewer children given DOLOs and an improved quality of provision for these children. As set out in the department’s recent policy statement, ‘Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive’, we want to see new forms of provision to address the rising need for suitable, registered homes capable of depriving a child of their liberty. This provision needs to be able to respond flexibly to children’s changing and fluctuating needs, as well as provide the crucial therapeutic care and, when necessary, restriction.The department intends, when Parliamentary time allows, to amend primary legislation to provide a statutory framework for local authorities seeking to place children in such new forms of accommodation, rather than relying on a DOLO. This new legislation will ensure that, where a secure children’s home cannot meet a child’s needs, there are clear criteria for when children may need to be deprived of liberty and mandatory review points to ensure that no child is deprived of liberty for longer than is required to keep them safe, while in high quality, registered provision.This is part of a wider programme of work to improve outcomes for children with complex needs. This includes a programme of capital investment to support local authorities to maintain existing capacity and expand provision in both open and secure children’s homes, including for children with complex needs. This also includes the creation of 350 additional open children’s homes placements by March 2025. The recent Autumn Budget 2024 announced £90 million for the 2025/26 financial year which includes a multi-million pound package of match funding to support local authorities to build additional open children’s home placements. This will provide high quality, safe homes for some of our most vulnerable children and young people.We have also recently commissioned independent research to understand the existing system and how we can achieve better outcomes for children who are, or are at risk of, being deprived of liberty. We aim to publish this in summer 2025. This will build on the insights gained from the research commissioned by the department from the Office of the Children’s Commissioner’s ‘Children with complex needs who are deprived of liberty’ report, published on 18 November, which interviewed children with complex needs who are deprived of liberty, their parents and the professionals who support them.

With reference to her statement of 18 November 2024 on Children’s Social Care, Official Report column 25, at what level she plans to cap profit from children’s social care placements.

As at 31 March 2024, there were 83,630 looked after children, which was similar to the previous year. The government has announced the following measures to ensure there are more of the right placements to meet the needs of looked after children:£44 million investment to support children in kinship care and foster care. This includes trialling a new kinship allowance in up to ten local authorities and ensuring that every local authority has access to a regional recruitment hub.£90 million to maintain capacity and expand provision in secure and open residential children’s homes. This will include creating 200 additional open children’s homes beds. This will provide safe and suitable homes for some of our vulnerable children and young people.Building on this investment in kinship, fostering and children’s homes, this government will go further to reform the children's social care system by helping children to stay with their families where possible, fixing the broken care market, and investing in key enablers which underpin the system.As the suite of reforms are developed, we will assess the impact for children, the social care system (including care places and workforce pressures) and the value for money of our reforms. Impact assessments will be published at the point of introducing proposals, subject to parliamentary procedure and time.The level of any future cap on the profits of children’s social care placement providers would depend on a number of factors, including market conditions at the point it was introduced. Before introducing any such cap we would consult fully, including with providers and local authorities.On the quality of children’s homes and inspection, the department is working hard to improve the quality of this provision through numerous avenues. We will seek to strengthen Ofsted’s powers to hold provider group owners of children’s homes and other children’s social care provision to account where there are quality issues across several settings owned by a group. This will help to resolve issues quickly and ensure the quality of children’s placements.The department is also working closely with Ofsted as they revise both their Social Care Common Inspection Framework (SCCIF) and Inspecting Local Authority Children’s Services framework in response to the Big Listen. We welcome their focus on ensuring that inspections are a constructive force in the sector that champion good practice, empower leaders and also that the progress and experiences of children are at the heart of inspection.Additionally, the department is working with Social Work England to scope and develop options for establishing professional registration for children’s homes managers and staff. This has the potential to raise the status and profile of working in the sector and improve the quality of provision by providing greater oversight of those working in the sector. We are confident that the ongoing work on provider oversight, updates to the SCCIF and development the workforce will result in significant improvements to the quality of children’s homes and inspection processes.There are no plans to increase the frequency of inspections this year. Children’s homes normally receive a full inspection at least once annually and if leaders and managers have shown that they can consistently deliver services for children well, it may be appropriate to return less often or do a more proportionate inspection. However, Ofsted always takes into account the risk to children of not inspecting as frequently.

Whether she will be taking steps to (a) improve the quality of children's homes and (b) increase the regularity of inspection of those homes.

As at 31 March 2024, there were 83,630 looked after children, which was similar to the previous year. The government has announced the following measures to ensure there are more of the right placements to meet the needs of looked after children:£44 million investment to support children in kinship care and foster care. This includes trialling a new kinship allowance in up to ten local authorities and ensuring that every local authority has access to a regional recruitment hub.£90 million to maintain capacity and expand provision in secure and open residential children’s homes. This will include creating 200 additional open children’s homes beds. This will provide safe and suitable homes for some of our vulnerable children and young people.Building on this investment in kinship, fostering and children’s homes, this government will go further to reform the children's social care system by helping children to stay with their families where possible, fixing the broken care market, and investing in key enablers which underpin the system.As the suite of reforms are developed, we will assess the impact for children, the social care system (including care places and workforce pressures) and the value for money of our reforms. Impact assessments will be published at the point of introducing proposals, subject to parliamentary procedure and time.The level of any future cap on the profits of children’s social care placement providers would depend on a number of factors, including market conditions at the point it was introduced. Before introducing any such cap we would consult fully, including with providers and local authorities.On the quality of children’s homes and inspection, the department is working hard to improve the quality of this provision through numerous avenues. We will seek to strengthen Ofsted’s powers to hold provider group owners of children’s homes and other children’s social care provision to account where there are quality issues across several settings owned by a group. This will help to resolve issues quickly and ensure the quality of children’s placements.The department is also working closely with Ofsted as they revise both their Social Care Common Inspection Framework (SCCIF) and Inspecting Local Authority Children’s Services framework in response to the Big Listen. We welcome their focus on ensuring that inspections are a constructive force in the sector that champion good practice, empower leaders and also that the progress and experiences of children are at the heart of inspection.Additionally, the department is working with Social Work England to scope and develop options for establishing professional registration for children’s homes managers and staff. This has the potential to raise the status and profile of working in the sector and improve the quality of provision by providing greater oversight of those working in the sector. We are confident that the ongoing work on provider oversight, updates to the SCCIF and development the workforce will result in significant improvements to the quality of children’s homes and inspection processes.There are no plans to increase the frequency of inspections this year. Children’s homes normally receive a full inspection at least once annually and if leaders and managers have shown that they can consistently deliver services for children well, it may be appropriate to return less often or do a more proportionate inspection. However, Ofsted always takes into account the risk to children of not inspecting as frequently.

If she will take steps to increase the number of places for looked after children.

As at 31 March 2024, there were 83,630 looked after children, which was similar to the previous year. The government has announced the following measures to ensure there are more of the right placements to meet the needs of looked after children:£44 million investment to support children in kinship care and foster care. This includes trialling a new kinship allowance in up to ten local authorities and ensuring that every local authority has access to a regional recruitment hub.£90 million to maintain capacity and expand provision in secure and open residential children’s homes. This will include creating 200 additional open children’s homes beds. This will provide safe and suitable homes for some of our vulnerable children and young people.Building on this investment in kinship, fostering and children’s homes, this government will go further to reform the children's social care system by helping children to stay with their families where possible, fixing the broken care market, and investing in key enablers which underpin the system.As the suite of reforms are developed, we will assess the impact for children, the social care system (including care places and workforce pressures) and the value for money of our reforms. Impact assessments will be published at the point of introducing proposals, subject to parliamentary procedure and time.The level of any future cap on the profits of children’s social care placement providers would depend on a number of factors, including market conditions at the point it was introduced. Before introducing any such cap we would consult fully, including with providers and local authorities.On the quality of children’s homes and inspection, the department is working hard to improve the quality of this provision through numerous avenues. We will seek to strengthen Ofsted’s powers to hold provider group owners of children’s homes and other children’s social care provision to account where there are quality issues across several settings owned by a group. This will help to resolve issues quickly and ensure the quality of children’s placements.The department is also working closely with Ofsted as they revise both their Social Care Common Inspection Framework (SCCIF) and Inspecting Local Authority Children’s Services framework in response to the Big Listen. We welcome their focus on ensuring that inspections are a constructive force in the sector that champion good practice, empower leaders and also that the progress and experiences of children are at the heart of inspection.Additionally, the department is working with Social Work England to scope and develop options for establishing professional registration for children’s homes managers and staff. This has the potential to raise the status and profile of working in the sector and improve the quality of provision by providing greater oversight of those working in the sector. We are confident that the ongoing work on provider oversight, updates to the SCCIF and development the workforce will result in significant improvements to the quality of children’s homes and inspection processes.There are no plans to increase the frequency of inspections this year. Children’s homes normally receive a full inspection at least once annually and if leaders and managers have shown that they can consistently deliver services for children well, it may be appropriate to return less often or do a more proportionate inspection. However, Ofsted always takes into account the risk to children of not inspecting as frequently.

With reference to her statement of 18 November 2024 on Children’s Social Care, Official Report columns 23 to 25, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of the changes announced on the number of places available for looked after children.

As at 31 March 2024, there were 83,630 looked after children, which was similar to the previous year. The government has announced the following measures to ensure there are more of the right placements to meet the needs of looked after children:£44 million investment to support children in kinship care and foster care. This includes trialling a new kinship allowance in up to ten local authorities and ensuring that every local authority has access to a regional recruitment hub.£90 million to maintain capacity and expand provision in secure and open residential children’s homes. This will include creating 200 additional open children’s homes beds. This will provide safe and suitable homes for some of our vulnerable children and young people.Building on this investment in kinship, fostering and children’s homes, this government will go further to reform the children's social care system by helping children to stay with their families where possible, fixing the broken care market, and investing in key enablers which underpin the system.As the suite of reforms are developed, we will assess the impact for children, the social care system (including care places and workforce pressures) and the value for money of our reforms. Impact assessments will be published at the point of introducing proposals, subject to parliamentary procedure and time.The level of any future cap on the profits of children’s social care placement providers would depend on a number of factors, including market conditions at the point it was introduced. Before introducing any such cap we would consult fully, including with providers and local authorities.On the quality of children’s homes and inspection, the department is working hard to improve the quality of this provision through numerous avenues. We will seek to strengthen Ofsted’s powers to hold provider group owners of children’s homes and other children’s social care provision to account where there are quality issues across several settings owned by a group. This will help to resolve issues quickly and ensure the quality of children’s placements.The department is also working closely with Ofsted as they revise both their Social Care Common Inspection Framework (SCCIF) and Inspecting Local Authority Children’s Services framework in response to the Big Listen. We welcome their focus on ensuring that inspections are a constructive force in the sector that champion good practice, empower leaders and also that the progress and experiences of children are at the heart of inspection.Additionally, the department is working with Social Work England to scope and develop options for establishing professional registration for children’s homes managers and staff. This has the potential to raise the status and profile of working in the sector and improve the quality of provision by providing greater oversight of those working in the sector. We are confident that the ongoing work on provider oversight, updates to the SCCIF and development the workforce will result in significant improvements to the quality of children’s homes and inspection processes.There are no plans to increase the frequency of inspections this year. Children’s homes normally receive a full inspection at least once annually and if leaders and managers have shown that they can consistently deliver services for children well, it may be appropriate to return less often or do a more proportionate inspection. However, Ofsted always takes into account the risk to children of not inspecting as frequently.

How many pupils have an (a) education, health and care plan and (b) a named school in each (i) region, (ii) local authority and (iii) constituency.

The requested information for each region and local authority is attached.Information on the number of all education, health and care (EHC) plans, and their named school is not readily available at constituency level.Information on the number of pupils in schools in England with EHC plans is available at constituency level here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/special-educational-needs-in-england. The data file titled ‘School level underlying data 2024 (csv, 10 Mb)’ under the section ‘Additional supporting files’ includes the figures at school level, including the school type and parliamentary constituency. As these figures are taken from the January 2024 school census, the parliamentary constituencies are based on pre-election boundaries. Where statistics were published prior to the changes in parliamentary constituency boundaries, they will be updated to reflect the new boundaries in the next publication of statistics. This is expected to be in June 2025 for statistics on schools and pupils, including special educational needs.

What steps her Department is taking to ensure mobile phones are not a distraction in (a) primary and (b) secondary schools.

​The department knows that using mobile phones in schools can lead to online bullying, distraction and classroom disruption, which can, in turn, lead to lost learning time. Schools are required by law to have a behaviour policy that sets out what is expected of all pupils, including outlining the items that are banned from school premises. Additionally, the government’s non-statutory guidance supports schools on how to develop, implement and maintain a policy that prohibits the use of mobile phones throughout the school day. Headteachers are responsible for the implementation of such guidance within their schools.

Whether increased costs from employer national insurance contributions will be taken into account in the childcare funding formula.

I refer the right Hon. member for Sevenoaks to the answer of 11 November 2024 to Question 12804.

What assessment she has made of the impact of increasing employers National Insurance contributions on childcare costs for working parents.

I refer the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks to the answer of 11 November 2024 to Question 12804.

What assessment she has made of the potential impact of the increase in employer National Insurance contributions on universities.

The department is aware that higher education (HE) providers will have to pay increased National Insurance contributions. As my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer set out in the Autumn Budget 2024, raising the revenue required to fund public services and restore economic stability requires difficult decisions. That is why the government has asked employers to contribute more.The Office for Students (OfS) is responsible for monitoring and reporting on the financial sustainability of the HE sector. The OfS has made its own estimate of the impacts in their update published on 15 November 2024. This update is available here: https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/media/s32lw2vq/financial-sustainability-of-higher-education-providers-in-england-november-2024-update.pdf.It is clear that the UK needs to put its world-leading HE sector on a secure footing in order to face the challenges of the next decade and ensure that all students have confidence they will receive the world-class HE experience they deserve. In line with this approach, from August 2025, the government will be increasing the maximum cap for tuition fees by 3.1%, in line with forecast inflation.The government recognises the impact the cost of living crisis has had on students and is also increasing the maximum loans for living costs for the 2025/26 academic year by 3.1%, to ensure that more support is targeted at students from the lowest income families. The department plans to publish an assessment of impacts of the planned tuition fee and student finance changes shortly.The department expects the HE sector to demonstrate that, in return for the increased investment that students are being asked to make, they deliver the very best outcomes both for those students and for the country. We are calling for providers to go further and play a stronger role in expanding access and improving outcomes for disadvantaged students.The department knows how vital securing a sustainable future for the HE sector is for the success of students. We will set out our longer-term plans for HE reform by next summer.

What estimate she has made of the cost to the public purse of the judicial review of her decision to pause the implementation of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act.

I refer the hon. Member for Sevenoaks to the answer of 18 November 2024 to Question 13264.

What her planned timetable is for publishing the recommendations of the Curriculum and Assessment review.

The timetable for the independent Curriculum and Assessment Review may be found in the terms of reference available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66d196b7d107658faec7e3db/Curriculum_and_assessment_review_-_aims_terms_of_reference_and_working_principles.pdf.

What estimate she has made of how much the increase to employers National Insurance contributions will cost universities.

The department is aware that higher education (HE) providers will have to pay increased National Insurance contributions. As my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer set out in the Autumn Budget 2024, raising the revenue required to fund public services and restore economic stability requires difficult decisions. That is why the government has asked employers to contribute more.The Office for Students (OfS) is responsible for monitoring and reporting on the financial sustainability of the HE sector. The OfS has made its own estimate of the impacts in their update published on 15 November 2024. This update is available here: https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/media/s32lw2vq/financial-sustainability-of-higher-education-providers-in-england-november-2024-update.pdf.It is clear that the UK needs to put its world-leading HE sector on a secure footing in order to face the challenges of the next decade and ensure that all students have confidence they will receive the world-class HE experience they deserve. In line with this approach, from August 2025, the government will be increasing the maximum cap for tuition fees by 3.1%, in line with forecast inflation.The government recognises the impact the cost of living crisis has had on students and is also increasing the maximum loans for living costs for the 2025/26 academic year by 3.1%, to ensure that more support is targeted at students from the lowest income families. The department plans to publish an assessment of impacts of the planned tuition fee and student finance changes shortly.The department expects the HE sector to demonstrate that, in return for the increased investment that students are being asked to make, they deliver the very best outcomes both for those students and for the country. We are calling for providers to go further and play a stronger role in expanding access and improving outcomes for disadvantaged students.The department knows how vital securing a sustainable future for the HE sector is for the success of students. We will set out our longer-term plans for HE reform by next summer.

With reference to the Written Statement of 22 October 2024 on Mainstream Free Schools, UIN HCWS150, if the proposed new special educational needs school in Swanley is one of the schools to have their funding reviewed.

The department is reviewing mainstream free school projects, to ensure that they continue to meet localised need for places, offer value for money and are not to the detriment of the other schools in the local area. The review covers mainstream, centrally delivered projects.Work on special and alternative provision (AP) free schools is continuing. As with all government investment, special and AP free school projects will be subject to value for money consideration through their development, in line with the government’s vision for the special educational needs system.