HC Deb 30 January 2003 vol 398 c1022W
Patrick Mercer

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what requirement schools are under to record reported incidents of bullying. [93589]

Mr. Ivan Lewis

There is no statutory requirement to keep record of such incidents, although this is good practice.

Rather than set new legal requirements, we want to help schools stop bullying. We have made available on request our free pack and video for schools entitled "Bullying: Don't Suffer in Silence". In addition, Ofsted inspectors ask about the incidence of bullying in the schools they inspect, and the school's response to the bullying.

Patrick Mercer

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what plans he has to collect centrally statistics on the rate of bullying in schools. [93590]

Mr. Ivan Lewis

We have no such plans.

However, we take bullying very seriously, and I would urge schools that do not have it to obtain a copy of the Department's free anti-bullying pack, "Bullying: Don't Suffer in Silence".

Patrick Mercer

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how much Government expenditure was directed towards reducing the rate of bullying in schools in each of the last three years. [93591]

Mr. Ivan Lewis

The information is not available in the form requested.

In England, we provided over £600 million to schools and local education authorities between 1999–2000 and 2001–02 to raise behaviour standards. It is not known how much was used for anti-bullying work, as expenditure decisions were taken locally. We have also funded the Department's anti-bullying pack, published in December 2000. In addition, we are providing around £190,000 a year towards the Parentline Plus helpline for parents of pupils who have been bullied, and we are also funding anti-bullying research by ChildLine—£120,000 in total, including a conference—and an external evaluation of the usefulness of our anti-bullying pack to schools that have ordered it. The evaluation will enable us to review, and where appropriate, enhance the effectiveness of our support to schools in reducing bullying. The cost of the evaluation is £20,000.