Written questions by Dhesi.

What estimate she has made of the number of young people out of (a) work, (b) education and (c) training in Slough.

The department publishes statistics on those not in education, employment or training (NEET) for England from the labour force survey (LFS) for young people aged 16 to 24. The statistics are available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/neet-statistics-annual-brief. The number of 16 to 24-year-olds estimated as NEET in England at the end of 2023 is estimated to be 709,600 (11.9% of the population). However, these estimates are only published at national level due to limitations with sample sizes for lower-level geographies. Therefore, NEET rates for young people aged 16 to 24 in Slough cannot be provided. However, local authorities are required to encourage, enable or assist young people’s participation in education or training and return management information for young people aged 16 and 17. This data is published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/neet-and-participation-local-authority-figures. The data shows that of the 4,435 young people aged 16 and 17 years old who were known to Slough local authority at the end of 2022 (average of December 2022, January 2023 and February 2023), 217 were NEET or their activity was not known (117 known to be NEET and 100 young people for whom the local authority could not confirm their activity). These statistics are published as transparency data so some caution should be taken if using these figures.

How many children living in relative poverty are not eligible for free school meals.

The new government has a central mission to break down barriers to opportunity for every child.The government has inherited a trend of rising child poverty and widening attainment gaps between children eligible for free school meals (FSM) and their peers. Child poverty has increased by 700,000 since 2010, with over four million children now growing up in a low-income family. The government is committed to delivering an ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty by tackling the root causes and giving every child the best start at life. To support this, a new ministerial taskforce has been set up to develop a Child Poverty Strategy, which will be published in spring 2025. The taskforce will consider a range of policies in assessing what will have the greatest impact in driving down rates of child poverty.A formal assessment has not been made of the number of children living in relative poverty who are eligible to receive FSM. As with all policies, the government keeps the approach to FSM under review.

What steps is she taking increase school attendance among children who are living in poverty.

Today, 4.3 million children are living in poverty in this country. Tackling child poverty is at the heart of breaking down barriers to opportunity and improving the life chances for every child. For too many children, living in poverty robs them of the opportunity to learn and to prosper.To support the educational outcomes of disadvantaged pupils, pupil premium funding in the 2024/25 financial year has increased to over £2.9 billion. Pupil premium funding is allocated to eligible schools based on the number of pupils who are recorded as eligible for free school meals (FSM) or have been recorded as eligible in the past six years (referred to as Ever 6 FSM), as well as children who are looked after by the local authority or have been adopted from or left care. In line with the pupil premium Menu of Approaches, schools can spend their pupil premium on evidence-based strategies to support attendance.This government will ensure school is the best place to be for every child, with free breakfast clubs in primary schools so that every child is on time and ready to learn, better mental health support through access to specialist mental health professionals in every school, and inclusion for children with special educational needs and disabilities within mainstream settings right across the age range.Backed by £15 million, the department is also expanding its investment into attendance mentoring to reach 10,000 more children and cover an additional ten areas. These attendance mentors will provide one-to-one targeted support for persistently and severely absent pupils.There is an absence epidemic in this country, with one in five children persistently absent. The department’s ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ statutory guidance sets a clear expectations that where pupils face additional barriers which affect their attendance, schools should work with these families and put support in place to help them to attend. The guidance can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66bf300da44f1c4c23e5bd1b/Working_together_to_improve_school_attendance_-_August_2024.pdf. Where the barriers are outside of the school’s control, all local partners should work together to support pupils and parents to access support to ensure regular attendance.

How their Department defines strategy.

The definition is detailed in the Functional Standards Common Glossary, which is published on the GOV.UK website.

How many university (a) biology, (b) chemistry and (c) physics departments (i) opened and (ii) closed in the last five years.

The government is committed to promoting science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and skills to ensure the UK remains competitive in the global economy. Universities operate as autonomous institutions, therefore specific data on the number of university biology, chemistry and physics departments that have opened and/or closed in the last five years is not collected or maintained by the department. The government recognises the financial environment of the higher education sector is increasingly challenging and the department is aware that some providers are making difficult decisions in order to safeguard their financial sustainability. The department is committed to working with the sector to create a secure future for our world-leading universities.

Pursuant to the Answer of 22 November 2024 to Question 14130, whether the local authorities to take part in the kinship allowance trial have been selected.

The government has recently announced a £40 million package to trial a new Kinship Allowance in up to 10 local authorities to test whether paying an allowance to cover the additional costs of supporting the child can help increase the number of children taken in by family members and friends. Further details on the process for selecting local authorities will be shared shortly.The programme will begin in 2025 and decisions about future national rollout will be informed by the findings of the evaluation. We will share further detail on the timetable and delivery of the programme in due course.

What the average staff to student ratio was in secondary schools in Slough constituency in each year since 2015.

Information on the school workforce, including the pupil to adult and pupil to teacher ratios at national, regional, local authority and individual school level, is published in the ‘School Workforce in England’ statistical publication, found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.In the 2023/24 academic year, which is the latest data available, the ratio of pupils to teachers (qualified and unqualified) was 16.8 in state-funded secondary schools in England, the same as the previous year. The ratio of pupils to adults (excluding auxiliary staff) was 12.0 to one in state-funded secondary schools in England, again the same as the previous year.The attached table provides the pupil to adult ratio and the pupil to teacher ratio for state-funded secondary schools in Slough constituency and England for the 2015/16 to 2023/24 academic years.

Whether the rate paid to nursery providers for free hours childcare will increase proportionately to cover the increase in employer national insurance contributions.

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

Whether she has made a recent assessment of the adequacy of the financial support available to kinship carers.

The government recognises the important role that kinship carers play in caring for some of the most vulnerable children.The government recently announced a £40 million package to trial a new Kinship Allowance in up to ten local authorities to test whether paying an allowance to cover certain costs, such as supporting a child to settle into a new home with relatives, can help increase the number of children taken in by family members and friends.This is the single biggest kinship care investment made by government to date. This investment could transform the lives of vulnerable children who can no longer live at home.The programme will begin in 2025 and decisions about future national rollout will be informed by the findings of the evaluation. The department will share further detail on the timetable and delivery of the programme in due course.

What steps they are taking to help increase productivity within their Department through the use of (a) artificial intelligence and (b) effective use of data.

The department is committed to improving its productivity, including through artificial intelligence (AI) and effective use of data.For example, a Microsoft Azure Open AI sandbox environment has been enabled to limited groups of users within the department, allowing them to build and test AI models based on specific use cases in a safe and secure environment. This has allowed the department to safely and securely test 12 use cases ahead of a launch into production and wider rollout to our workforce. If testing goes well, newly-developed technologies are expected to be rolled out to staff from December 2024. We believe these will be amongst the first bespoke generative AI tools launched in government and will allow the department to deliver its services to the public at a faster pace and lower cost.The department is also mid-way through the migration of its analysts to the new Analytical Data Access service, giving analysts and policy teams a single point of access to key departmental data. This data is fully governed, secure and discoverable using the latest cloud technology tools. This is significantly improving the speed and reliability of the department’s data to better inform holistic policy and funding considerations, and support scenario planning. It also provides a secure environment for utilising AI and large language models, where both lawful and ethical.The department draws on a range of resources, published on GOV.UK, to inform its AI and data usage, for example, the Generative AI Framework and the Ethics, Transparency and Accountability Framework. We also work closely with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to widen access to the data we are responsible for via the existing ONS Secure Research Service, and are also partnering with the ONS to support development and integration of department data into the new Integrated Data Service.The department also has access to the Central Digital and Data Office, based in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, for expert advice. We will continue to regularly review our usage of AI and data to maximise productivity benefits for staff and the public.

What the timeline is for the increase in the number of attendance mentors for schools.

On 11 October 2024, the department announced an additional £15 million to expand the attendance mentoring programme to at least 10,000 pupils across ten new areas.Mentoring support is expected to begin in April 2025. More information can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/thousands-of-pupils-receive-support-to-boost-school-attendance--2.

What additional support she plans to provided to (a) parents and guardians and (b) children to help tackle the root causes of persistent school absences.

Tackling school absence is at the heart of the department’s mission to break down the barriers to opportunity. However, 20.7% of children remain persistently absent, missing 10% or more of lessons, and we recognise that supporting parents, guardians and children is vitally important in overcoming this.This is why the department has published the ’Working together to improve school attendance’ guidance, which became statutory in August 2024. The guidance promotes a 'support first' approach, setting clear expectations that schools and local authorities should work with families to address barriers to attendance in a sensitive way. To support parents, we have published a parent-facing version of the guidance and have worked with schools to strengthen communications to parents around attendance.In addition, backed by £15 million, the government is expanding attendance mentoring to reach 10,000 more children and cover an additional ten areas. This is alongside the commitment to roll out funded breakfast clubs to all primary schools to ensure all children are ready to learn.Mental health support is particularly important for enabling pupils to attend. The department has provided grants for all schools to train a senior mental health lead. We are also committed to delivering access to specialist mental health professionals in every school.

What specialist mental health support she plans to provide to secondary schools to help tackle absences.

Poor mental health in children and young people is a significant contributing factor in school absence, and a key barrier to opportunity and learning, that the government is committed to addressing.To tackle mental ill-health among children and young people, the government has committed to provide access to specialist mental health professionals in every school. We need to ensure any support meets the needs of young people, teachers, parents, and carers which is why we are exploring a range of options. This includes existing programmes of support with evidence of a positive impact, such as Mental Health Support Teams in schools and colleges. The government will also be putting in place new Young Futures hubs, including access to mental health support workers, and will recruit an additional 8,500 new mental health staff to treat children and adults.This is in addition to activity to support schools and local authorities to tackle the school absence challenge, which includes setting clear expectations for schools, trusts and local authorities to provide a ‘support first’ approach to attendance. Departmental guidance can be viewed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-together-to-improve-school-attendance.The department is also piloting attendance mentors, offering 1:1 targeted support to 10,000 persistently absent pupils and their families across 15 local authorities to identify and address barriers to education.

What steps her Department is taking to ensure children with high school absence rates are supported to increase their attendance in (a) the South East and (b) Slough constituency.

Detailed pupil absence data is collected as part of the school census and published on a termly basis. All absence data for England, including data at Regional and Local Authority level, is available via the National Statistics releases: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/.Data from 2022/23 shows that Slough had an overall absence rate of 7.6%, which was above the national rate of 7.4% and the regional rate of 7.3%. A similar trend was observed in the persistently absent data for these areas, as shown here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/a7dbf68f-64f1-4029-e937-08dcf7e7048c.The government recognises school absence as a key barrier to learning. If children are not in school, they will not benefit from teaching and learning, regardless of how effective or well-supported it is. Missing school regularly is harmful to a child’s attainment, safety and physical and mental health, limiting their opportunity to succeed. Thanks to the sector's efforts, more students are attending school this year compared to last. However, 1.6 million children remain persistently absent, missing 10% or more of lessons.The department has a national strategy for tackling absence impacting all schools, including those in the South East and within the Slough constituency. Central to this are stronger expectations of local authorities and schools, as set out in the 'Working together to improve school attendance' guidance, which was made statutory in August 2024. The guidance promotes a support first approach, encouraging schools, trusts, and local authorities to work with families to address attendance barriers.Every state school in England should now be sharing their daily attendance register data with the department, local authorities and trusts. These bodies can access this data through a secure, interactive dashboard maintained by the department, allowing them to target attendance interventions more effectively.The department recognises the importance of creating opportunities to share existing best practice within the sector on how to improve attendance. Across the nation there is a network of 31 attendance hubs, working with 2000 schools to share to share their strategies and resources for improving attendance.In addition to this work, the department aims to improve the existing evidence on which interventions work to improve attendance. Over £17 million is being invested across two mentoring projects that will support at least 12,000 pupils in 15 areas. These programmes will be evaluated and the effective practice shared with schools and local authorities nationally.The attendance strategy is also supported by broader investments, including funded breakfast clubs which will be provided for all primary schools to ensure children start their day ready to learn. The department will also introduce new annual Ofsted reviews focusing on safeguarding, attendance, and off-rolling. Mental health support is also being expanded, with a specialist now available in every school. Additionally, schools can allocate pupil premium funding, which has been increased to over £2.9 billion for the 2024/25 financial year, to support pupils with identified needs.

What assessment she has made of recent trends in the level of school attendance in (a) the South East and (b) England in the last 12 months.

Detailed pupil absence data is collected as part of the school census and published on a termly basis. All absence data for England, including data at Regional and Local Authority level, is available via the National Statistics releases: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/.Data from 2022/23 shows that Slough had an overall absence rate of 7.6%, which was above the national rate of 7.4% and the regional rate of 7.3%. A similar trend was observed in the persistently absent data for these areas, as shown here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/a7dbf68f-64f1-4029-e937-08dcf7e7048c.The government recognises school absence as a key barrier to learning. If children are not in school, they will not benefit from teaching and learning, regardless of how effective or well-supported it is. Missing school regularly is harmful to a child’s attainment, safety and physical and mental health, limiting their opportunity to succeed. Thanks to the sector's efforts, more students are attending school this year compared to last. However, 1.6 million children remain persistently absent, missing 10% or more of lessons.The department has a national strategy for tackling absence impacting all schools, including those in the South East and within the Slough constituency. Central to this are stronger expectations of local authorities and schools, as set out in the 'Working together to improve school attendance' guidance, which was made statutory in August 2024. The guidance promotes a support first approach, encouraging schools, trusts, and local authorities to work with families to address attendance barriers.Every state school in England should now be sharing their daily attendance register data with the department, local authorities and trusts. These bodies can access this data through a secure, interactive dashboard maintained by the department, allowing them to target attendance interventions more effectively.The department recognises the importance of creating opportunities to share existing best practice within the sector on how to improve attendance. Across the nation there is a network of 31 attendance hubs, working with 2000 schools to share to share their strategies and resources for improving attendance.In addition to this work, the department aims to improve the existing evidence on which interventions work to improve attendance. Over £17 million is being invested across two mentoring projects that will support at least 12,000 pupils in 15 areas. These programmes will be evaluated and the effective practice shared with schools and local authorities nationally.The attendance strategy is also supported by broader investments, including funded breakfast clubs which will be provided for all primary schools to ensure children start their day ready to learn. The department will also introduce new annual Ofsted reviews focusing on safeguarding, attendance, and off-rolling. Mental health support is also being expanded, with a specialist now available in every school. Additionally, schools can allocate pupil premium funding, which has been increased to over £2.9 billion for the 2024/25 financial year, to support pupils with identified needs.

What recent assessment she has made of trends in the level of persistent school absence rates in the last 12 months.

Detailed pupil absence data is collected as part of the school census and published on a termly basis. All absence data for England, including data at Regional and Local Authority level, is available via the National Statistics releases: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/.Data from 2022/23 shows that Slough had an overall absence rate of 7.6%, which was above the national rate of 7.4% and the regional rate of 7.3%. A similar trend was observed in the persistently absent data for these areas, as shown here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/a7dbf68f-64f1-4029-e937-08dcf7e7048c.The government recognises school absence as a key barrier to learning. If children are not in school, they will not benefit from teaching and learning, regardless of how effective or well-supported it is. Missing school regularly is harmful to a child’s attainment, safety and physical and mental health, limiting their opportunity to succeed. Thanks to the sector's efforts, more students are attending school this year compared to last. However, 1.6 million children remain persistently absent, missing 10% or more of lessons.The department has a national strategy for tackling absence impacting all schools, including those in the South East and within the Slough constituency. Central to this are stronger expectations of local authorities and schools, as set out in the 'Working together to improve school attendance' guidance, which was made statutory in August 2024. The guidance promotes a support first approach, encouraging schools, trusts, and local authorities to work with families to address attendance barriers.Every state school in England should now be sharing their daily attendance register data with the department, local authorities and trusts. These bodies can access this data through a secure, interactive dashboard maintained by the department, allowing them to target attendance interventions more effectively.The department recognises the importance of creating opportunities to share existing best practice within the sector on how to improve attendance. Across the nation there is a network of 31 attendance hubs, working with 2000 schools to share to share their strategies and resources for improving attendance.In addition to this work, the department aims to improve the existing evidence on which interventions work to improve attendance. Over £17 million is being invested across two mentoring projects that will support at least 12,000 pupils in 15 areas. These programmes will be evaluated and the effective practice shared with schools and local authorities nationally.The attendance strategy is also supported by broader investments, including funded breakfast clubs which will be provided for all primary schools to ensure children start their day ready to learn. The department will also introduce new annual Ofsted reviews focusing on safeguarding, attendance, and off-rolling. Mental health support is also being expanded, with a specialist now available in every school. Additionally, schools can allocate pupil premium funding, which has been increased to over £2.9 billion for the 2024/25 financial year, to support pupils with identified needs.