§ Mr. WillisTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will place in the Library the results of the survey his Department conducted in 2002 into the arrangements each local education authority has in place to provide full-time education to excluded pupils. [119686]
§ Mr. Ivan LewisThe information received from LEAs about the education of permanently excluded pupils in response to a survey in spring 2002 was not sufficiently robust to provide a reliable picture of the type of education provision they received. Eight LEAs did not reply, and those who did used different methodologies to calculate their figures, some of which were incomplete. Some also expressed concern about the reliability of their own returns. For this reason I do not intend to place the results of this survey in the House of Commons Library.
However, all local education authorities confirmed that they were able to achieve the target of providing full-time education for all permanently excluded pupils by September 2002 and all but two currently report that they are sustaining such provision.
§ Mr. Damian GreenTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what percentage of children excluded from school are receiving their statutory entitlement to education following exclusion. [119424]
§ Mr. Ivan LewisThere is no specific statutory entitlement to education following exclusion. However, the Government made a commitment to secure full-time education for all permanently excluded pupils by September 2002. All local education authorities confirmed that they were able to achieve that target and all but two currently report that they are sustaining such provision. In addition, Behaviour Improvement Programme LEAs are committed to providing full-time education for pupils temporarily excluded from target schools.