Stuart Anderson

Any decision as to the future of the Fund is a matter for the current Spending Review process.

Delivering the government’s agenda to break down the barriers to opportunity relies on a highly skilled workforce in schools, and high-quality teaching is the in-school factor that makes the biggest difference to a child’s education.

There are now 468,693 full-time equivalent teachers in state-funded schools in England but numbers have not kept pace with demand. This is why the department is committed to recruiting an additional 6,500 new expert teachers across our schools, both mainstream and specialist, and our colleges over the course of this Parliament. This will help ensure that children in South Shropshire and all other areas of the country, including rural areas, have the expert qualified teachers they need in order to achieve and thrive.

The government is committed to breaking down barriers to success and opportunity. Too many children and young people today do not have access to the same enrichment opportunities as their peers, suffer from poor mental health, and, in some cases, end up being drawn into crime rather than going on to achieve and thrive.

Young Futures Hubs will bring together services to improve access to opportunities and support for young people at community level, promoting positive outcomes and enabling them to thrive. Ensuring young people from rural areas are included in the rollout of Young Futures Hubs is incredibly important.

As part of the development process, the department is engaging with local areas, communities, statutory partners, charities and other key stakeholders to support the design of the Young Futures Hubs and explore options for their delivery. This will ensure we are making use of the vast knowledge and experience that already exists, and will include considerations of the most suitable locations, as well as how best to engage with those young people who would benefit most from their support. The number of Young Futures Hubs, their specific locations and their reach are still being determined, and we will share further information regarding these Hubs in due course.

This government is committed to driving economic growth and supporting opportunity for all. To help achieve these missions, we announced £300 million in the 2025/26 financial year for further education (FE) at the Autumn Budget 2024. We will set out how the additional funding will be distributed in due course.

The department has a number of schemes available to support young people in accessing FE facilities.

The Residential Bursary Fund (RBF) provides financial help towards the costs of accommodation for students attending a number of designated institutions delivering specialist provision. These specialist colleges mainly offer support for study programmes in the land-based sector, for example agriculture and horticulture.

The Residential Support Scheme (RSS) provides financial help for students aged 16 to 18 with the costs of living away from home to participate in a study programme where the substantial level 2 or level 3 qualification within their study programme is not available within daily travelling distance.

The department recognises that the cost and availability of transport can be difficult for some students in rural areas.

The 16-19 Bursary Fund helps young people who couldn’t otherwise afford the costs of education to participate. In the 2024/25 academic year, over £166 million of bursary funding has been allocated to institutions to help disadvantaged 16 to 19 year olds with costs such as travel. The allocation to institutions is based, among other factors, on whether students live in rural areas and how far they travel to learn.

It is the responsibility of local authorities to put in place transport arrangements to help young people aged 16 to 18 to access education or training, using funds they have available locally. All local authorities have to prioritise their spending carefully. Local authorities in rural areas face unique challenges, but in these difficult economic times authorities in other types of areas face challenges too.

The actual transport provided by local authorities varies, but sometimes involves giving 16 to 18 year olds access to school transport or bus travel for payment of a flat fee. Unlike for school travel, provision does not need to be free.

Many young people in rural areas have access to a discount or concession on local bus or train travel, either from their local authority or local transport providers. The government also supports local bus travel, including in rural areas, through the Bus Service Operators Grant.

The government publishes guidance for local authorities on their post-16 transport duty. Guidance makes it clear that local authorities need to look at the transport needs of those who live in particularly rural areas where the transport infrastructure can be limited.

This government is committed to breaking down barriers to opportunity and ensuring every child has access to high quality education. The government’s ambition is that all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life. We are committed to improving inclusivity and expertise in mainstream schools, as well as ensuring special schools cater to those with the most complex needs.

At the Autumn Budget 2024, the government announced a £1 billion uplift in high needs funding for the 2025/26 financial year, providing additional support and improving outcomes for the more than a million children in the state sector with SEND.

Pupils who need a local authority funded place in a private school, including those with local authority funded education, health and care (EHC) plans, will not be impacted by the changes. This is because local authorities can reclaim the VAT that will be charged.

Most children with SEND, including most with an EHC plan, are educated in mainstream state funded schools. All state funded schools support children with SEND and all children of compulsory age are entitled to a state funded school place that is free for parents. Where a private school place is necessary to support a child with SEND, the local authority will fund it through an EHC plan.

Local authorities have a statutory duty to ensure there are sufficient state school places in their area. Local authorities routinely support parents who need a state funded school place, including where private schools have closed or where pupils move between schools. The department works with local authorities to support place planning and ensure there is capacity in the state funded sector to meet demand.

The National Careers Service in England provides free, up to date, impartial information advice and guidance on careers, skills and the labour market, helping customers make informed choices about their career options, whatever their age, ethnic group and background.

The service is delivered via three channels. These are face to face, telephone and webchat. It is delivered by local, community-based contractors in nine geographic areas, drawing on localised labour market information to provide guidance, helping those who face barriers, including those within rural communities.

The National Careers Service website gives customers 24/7 access to information and advice. Careers advisers are co-located in the majority of Jobcentre Plus offices, providing specialist careers guidance.

The service operates in other settings including community centres, training providers, libraries. A recent initiative in the South West used a specially equipped bus to take careers advice directly to local communities. In some rural settings, where travel can be an issue, telephone appointments are arranged. Virtual jobs fairs and online webinars are offered for customers who may find it difficult to access face to face workshops.

Looking ahead, alongside the Department for Work and Pensions we are working in England to bring together Jobcentre Plus with the National Careers Service to create a greater awareness and focus on skills and careers, as well as join-up between employability and careers provision, enabling everyone to access and progress in good, meaningful work.

The new service will be a one-stop shop for anyone, including those in rural areas, who wants to look for work, wants help to increase their earnings, or who wants help to change their career or re-train. Employment and careers support will be available to all, not just those on benefits, who want support to find or progress in work.

The department will ensure the service is responsive to local employers, inclusive for all users, and works in partnership with other local services. We will set out more details about this and other labour market reforms through our forthcoming White Paper to Get Britain Working.

In October, the department expanded eligibility for retention incentives to include early career further education (FE) teachers in key science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and technical subjects. FE teachers can currently apply for the payment between 14 October 2024 and 31 March 2025 on GOV.UK: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/targeted-retention-incentive-payments-for-fe-teachers.

The targeted retention incentive, aimed at boosting the recruitment and retention of teachers, gives eligible teachers in disadvantaged schools and all colleges up to £6,000 after tax. This has doubled the previous retention payments paid to school teachers and is now available to eligible teachers at all FE colleges, for the first time.

High quality, affordable early education and childcare is essential to ensuring that all our children get the best start in life.

The department recognises that there are differences in the availability of childcare depending on where you live.

The latest data from the Office for National Statistics and Ofsted shows variations in the level of access to childcare places across the country, with the most deprived local authorities and rural areas the most likely to be areas that have faced low childcare accessibility over time. The data is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/changes-to-access-to-childcare-in-england/commentary-changes-in-access-to-childcare-in-england.

The government has committed to working with the sector to embed early years within the wider education system, and to find new ways to shift the early education system to better support parents in poorer and rural areas. This starts with the plan to utilise unused space in primary schools to create much needed places in 3,000 nurseries, working in partnership with all parts of the sector and local authorities.

Under Section 6 of the Childcare Act 2006, local authorities are responsible for ensuring that the provision of childcare is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents in their area. Part B of the 'Early education and childcare' statutory guidance for local authorities highlights that local authorities are required to report annually to elected council members on how they are meeting their duty to secure sufficient childcare, and to make this report available and accessible to parents. The department has regular contact with each local authority in England about their sufficiency of childcare and any issues they are facing

Where local authorities report sufficiency challenges, the department discusses what action the local authority is taking to address those issues and, where needed, support the local authority with any specific requirements through our childcare sufficiency support contract. We have recently launched a termly local authority readiness self assessment tool, which is intended to enable local authorities to gauge their progress as we move towards rollout. This will enable the department to work with local authorities to address issues as they emerge.

Further education (FE) plays a critical role in delivering the government’s missions and ensuring that everyone has access to the opportunities they need, breaking down the barriers to their success and boosting economic growth.

FE funding, including the adequacy of resources across the country including South Shropshire and other rural areas, will be considered as part of the Spending Review.

The future of the holiday activities and food programme beyond 31 March 2025 is subject to the next government Spending Review taking place this autumn and the department will communicate the outcome of that process in due course.

The national funding formula (NFF) accounts for the challenges faced by small schools in rural areas through the lump sum and sparsity factors. The lump sum provides a fixed amount of £134,000 that is unrelated to pupil numbers, and so is particularly beneficial to small rural schools. The department is also providing £98 million in total through the sparsity factor in 2024/25 to support small and remote schools, which typically benefits rural schools. In 2024/25, 75 schools in Shropshire local authority area attract sparsity funding in the NFF, including 40 in the South Shropshire constituency.

In July 2024, the department also announced almost £1.1 billion through the Core Schools Budget Grant to support schools with their overall costs. All schools, including rural schools, will receive funding through this grant in 2024/25.

Delivering the government’s agenda to break down the barriers to opportunity relies on a highly skilled workforce in schools. There are now 468,693 full-time equivalent teachers in state-funded schools in England, but the department needs to do more to recruit additional teachers, especially in shortage subjects in secondary schools.

The department knows that high quality teaching is the factor that makes the biggest difference to a child’s education, which is why the government has set out the ambition to recruit an additional 6,500 new expert teachers. The department has taken the first steps towards this mission by restarting and expanding the teacher recruitment campaign, ‘Every Lesson Shapes a Life’. The Secretary of State for Education and her ministerial team are dedicated to working alongside education partners and have already begun restoring the relationship with the sector. The Secretary of State has already addressed over 14,000 people from the workforce in the first of many regular engagements and has committed to working alongside them to re-establish teaching as an attractive and expert profession.

The number of teachers in South Shropshire has remained stable, with 526 teachers in the 2023/24 academic year. The department is doing more to attract teachers in this area. Financial incentives are one of the most effective ways to increase teacher supply. The minimum starting salary for teachers in South Shropshire increased to £30,000 from the start of the 2023/24 academic year. Mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers, who chose to work in disadvantaged schools, receive retention payments worth up to £3,000 after tax. As the department works towards its ambition of recruiting 6,500 more teachers, it will do more to ensure teachers are attracted to the areas with the highest levels of need.

Alongside recruiting more teachers, the government is also committed to tackling retention challenges, making work pay, and supporting teachers to stay in the profession and thrive. We will be making further announcements on these issues in due course.

The department has published a range of resources to help address teacher workload and wellbeing and to support schools to introduce flexible working practices. The department's 'Improve workload and wellbeing for school staff service', which was developed alongside school leaders, includes a workload reduction toolkit to support schools to identify opportunities to cut excessive workload. The Education Staff Wellbeing Charter also sets out commitments from the government, Ofsted, schools and colleges to protect and promote the wellbeing of staff.