Corporate report

[Withdrawn] Department for Education single departmental plan: May 2018

Updated 27 June 2019

This was published under the 2016 to 2019 May Conservative government

This corporate report was withdrawn on 15 July 2021

It has been replaced by our outcome delivery plan.

This publication was withdrawn on 13 June 2019

It has been replaced by a new version

Our single departmental plan sets out key priorities of our Secretary of State.

Secretary of State for Education

The Rt Hon Damian Hinds MP

Permanent Secretary

Jonathan Slater

The Department for Education is responsible for children’s services and education, including early years, schools, higher and further education policy, apprenticeships and wider skills in England.

Our vision is to provide world-class education, training and care for everyone, whatever their background. It will make sure that everyone has the chance to reach their potential, and live a more fulfilled life. It will also create a more productive economy, so that our country is fit for the future.

Our principles

As we strive to achieve our vision, 7 principles will guide our work. These principles will help guide our reforms and plans. The principles are cross-cutting and will shape everything we do as a department, from strategy development through to delivery.

World-class education:

• ensure our academic standards match and keep pace with key comparator nations
• strive to bring our technical education standards in line with leading international systems
• ensure that education builds character, resilience and well-being

To achieve this we will:

• remember that in education and care, by far the most important factor is the people delivering it – so we will strive to recruit, develop and retain the best
• prioritise in all we do the people and places left behind, the most disadvantaged
• protect the autonomy of institutions by intervening only where clear boundaries are crossed
• make every pound of our funding count

Our main delivery areas

1. Children’s services, early years and well-being
2. Schools
3. Post-16 and skills
4. Building our department together

1. Children’s services, early years and well-being

Lead minister

Nadhim Zahawi MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Children and Families

Lead officials

Indra Morris Director General, Social Care, Mobility and Equalities (Children’s Services)

Paul Kett Director General, Education Standards (Early Years)

Our priorities
Support local authorities to deliver high performing children’s services everywhere
Secure a highly capable, highly skilled social work workforce (including through the National Assessment and Accreditation System and Social Work England)
Ensure that children in need of help and protection are supported by a national system of excellent and innovative practice (including through a new What Works Centre)
Promote the educational outcomes of disadvantaged children and young people
Continue to deliver and embed our offer of 30 hours of free childcare for working parents
Improve our understanding of how best to support parents to develop their children’s learning at home
Improve our understanding of child wellbeing and happiness

Our performance^{[footnote 1]}

Local authority children’s services, inspected under the single inspection framework, rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted

Date	Percentage of local authority children’s services rated good or outstanding by Ofsted	Number of inspections
December 2017	36%	152
March 2017	29%	127
March 2016	25%	93
Mach 2015	24%	55

‘Single inspection framework’ inspections were published for all 152 local authorities responsible for children’s social care in England by 8 December 2017.

Source: Local authority and children’s homes in England inspections and outcomes autumn 2017: main findings; release schedule: bi-annually

Percentage of children reaching a good level of development in the early years foundation stage profile assessment

Academic year	Percentage achieving a good level of development
2017	71%
2016	69%
2015	66%
2014	60%
2013	52%

Children achieving a good level of development are those achieving at least the expected level within the following areas of learning: communication and language; physical development; personal, social and emotional development; literacy; and mathematics.

Source: Early years foundation stage profile results: 2016 to 2017; release schedule: annually

Take up of funded early education for 3- and 4-year-olds

Date	Percentage of 3- and 4-year-olds benefiting from some funded early education
January 2017	95%
January 2016	95%
January 2015	95%
January 2014	95%
January 2013	95%
January 2012	95%
January 2011	94%

All 4-year-olds have been entitled to government-funded early education since 1998 and in 2004 this was extended to all 3-year-olds. Since September 2017, working parents of 3- and 4-year-olds have been entitled to an additional 15 hours of funded childcare for 38 weeks of the year.

Source: Education provision: children under 5 years of age, January 2017; release schedule: annually

Percentage of providers on the Early Years Register rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted

Date	Percentage of inspected providers rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’
31 August 2017	94%
31 August 2016	91%
31 August 2015	85%
31 August 2014	80%
31 August 2013	77%
31 August 2012	74%

As at 31 August 2017, of the 65,422 providers on the Early Years Register, 80% had been inspected, with the remaining 20% yet to be inspected.

Source: Childcare providers and inspections as at 31 August 2017; release schedule: termly

2. Schools

Lead ministers

The Rt Hon Nick Gibb MP, Minister of State for School Standards (Teaching Profession and School Efficiency)

Lord Theodore Agnew, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the School System (School Improvement)

Lead officials

Paul Kett Director General, Education Standards

Andrew McCully Director General, Infrastructure and Funding

Eileen Milner Chief Executive Officer, Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA)

Our priorities
Ensure there are sufficient high-quality teachers in our schools for the long term, by delivering our teacher recruitment and retention strategy
Support schools to get the best out of their budgets, improving school resource management, providing more advice, support and deals for schools
Maintain our focus on ensuring all children can access a place at a ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ school
Elevate the status of our teaching profession; including by: strengthening qualified teacher status, reducing unnecessary workload, and supporting the Chartered College of Teaching
Continue to build school-led system capacity across the country, giving our academies and maintained schools the space and support to thrive, and helping schools to make the positive choice of grouping together in successful multi-academy trusts
Provide targeted, place-based support in the areas that need it, including through our opportunity areas
Design and deliver the new curriculum fund to provide excellent curriculum plans and content
Drive forward our focus on key subjects within the curriculum, including through the English Baccalaureate (EBacc), phonics and computer science
Ensure new relationships and sex education (RSE), and personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE) support young people to stay safe and prepare for life in modern Britain, and work with the Department of Health and Social Care to improve children’s mental health through improved support
Work with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to create a stronger, more integrated Britain

Our performance^{[footnote 1]}

Pupils in ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ schools

6.8 million children are now in schools rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’, 87% of children compared to 66% in 2010

Source: Maintained schools and academies inspections and outcomes as at 31 August 2017: main findings; Ofsted inspection data; release schedule: annually

Average Attainment 8 score of all state-funded schools

46 at key stage 4 during the 2016 to 2017 academic year

In secondary schools the new, more challenging main national indicator of pupil performance is the Attainment 8 score per pupil. Attainment 8 measures the average achievement of pupils in up to 8 qualifications including English (double weighted if the combined English qualification, or both language and literature are taken), maths (double weighted), 3 further qualifications that count in the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) and 3 further qualifications that can be GCSE qualifications (including EBacc subjects) or any other non-GCSE qualifications on the DfE approved list.

Source: Revised GCSE and equivalent results in England: 2016 to 2017; release schedule: annually

Pupils reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and maths at the end of key stage 2

Year	Percentage reaching the expected standard	Percentage reaching a higher standard
2017	61%	9%
2016	53%	5%

Source: National curriculum assessments at key stage 2 in England, 2017 (provisional); release schedule: annually

This is the second year of operation for the new assessments of students through the new, more challenging national curriculum in primary schools.

Schools rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ at their most recent inspection

Date	Percentage of schools rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’
31 August 2017	89%
31 August 2016	89%
31 August 2015	84%
31 August 2014	81%
31 August 2013	78%
31 August 2012	70%
31 August 2011	70%
31 August 2010	68%
31 August 2009	66%

Source: Maintained schools and academies inspections and outcomes as at 31 March 2017; release schedule: annually

Pupils achieving the threshold of a grade 4 or above in English and maths in state-funded schools

Date	Percentage pupils achieving the threshold of a grade 4 or above in English and maths in state-funded schools
2017	63.9%
2016	63.0%

In summer 2015 students began studying new GCSEs in English language, English literature and maths. The new GCSEs are graded 1 to 9, with 9 being the top grade. The first students sitting the new GCSEs received their results in August 2017. The 2017 and 2016 figures shown above are comparable because the bottom of a grade 4 in reformed GCSEs maps onto the bottom of a grade C of unreformed GCSEs.

Source: Revised GCSE and equivalent results in England: 2016 to 2017; release schedule: annually

3. Post-16 and skills

Lead ministers

The Rt Hon Anne Milton MP, Minister for State and Apprenticeships and Skills (Further Education quality, financial stability and T-Levels)

Sam Gyimah MP, Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation (Higher Education reform)

Lead official

Philippa Lloyd Director General, Higher and Further Education

Eileen Milner Chief Executive Officer, Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA)

Our priorities
Deliver T-Levels as a gold standard for technical and professional excellence, benchmarked against the systems of world leading countries (contributes to SDG 16)
Continue our ground-breaking reforms to apprenticeships, with quality at the core (contributes to SDG 4)
Review post-18 education and funding to make sure that our system is joined up and promotes access and success in all forms of post-18 education - providing real choice, quality and value for money for everyone, as well as delivering the skills our country needs
Develop a national retraining scheme to drive up adult learning and retraining
Scrutinise the quality of technical education at higher levels through a qualifications review, focused on levels 4 and 5 (contributes to SDG 4)
Improve capacity, quality and resilience of the further education sector, working with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to support the government’s ambitious industrial strategy
Raise the status of our further education teaching profession
Improve the quality of careers advice and guidance for children, young people and adults so that they are aware of the breadth of opportunities available to them
Boost exports by making the most of our international reputation in the provision of higher education and other areas
Put in place the right conditions for a flourishing education technology sector, supporting innovative ideas in online and offline delivery

Our performance^{[footnote 1]}

Quality apprenticeships starts

1.3 million people of all ages started apprenticeships between May 2015 and January 2018

We are committed to supporting employers to create 3 million quality apprenticeships.

Source: Further education and skills: March 2018; release schedule: monthly

Overall effectiveness of further education and skills providers at their most recent inspection

82% of further education and skills providers have been rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ at their most recent inspection, as at 30 April 2018

Source: Further education and skills: inspection outcomes; release schedule: annually

4. Building our department together

Permanent Secretary

Jonathan Slater

Lead official

Mike Green acting Director General of Insight, Resources and Transformation.

‘Building our department together’ is our transformation programme to help us become a brilliant department. It will build the department’s capability so that we are better able to meet the expectations of our users and ministers. It starts with our 4 transformation aims.

Our transformation aims
Be user-centred: we know who our users are and meet their needs
Deliver end-to-end: we design and deliver around our users’ needs
Empower yourself and others: we value teams who take initiative and make improvements
Make evidence-based decisions: we use evidence to make effective decisions

Our equality objectives

We have set objectives to help us advance equality. These are:

• Promote the educational outcomes of disadvantaged children and young people, by delivering a national funding formula for schools and continuing to support disadvantaged young people through the pupil premium
• Provide targeted, place-based support in the areas that need it, including through our opportunity areas
• work with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to create a stronger, more integrated Britain

Our performance^{[footnote 1]}

Attainment disadvantage gap index

The gap is measured on a scale of -10 to +10 with positive numbers indicating that disadvantaged pupils had scored less than all other pupils on average, and negative scores indicating that disadvantaged pupils have scored higher.

Year	Disadvantaged pupils’ attainment gap index in state-funded schools at key stage 2	Disadvantaged pupils’ attainment gap index in state-funded schools at key stage 4
2017	2.99	3.66
2016	3.03	3.78
2015	3.10	3.80
2014	3.15	3.74
2013	3.16	3.81
2012	3.23	3.89
2011	3.34	4.07

Sources: Revised GCSE and equivalent results in England: 2016 to 2017; National curriculum assessments: key stage 2, 2017 (revised); release schedule: annually

Take up of free early education for disadvantaged 2-year-olds

Year	Percentage of eligible children benefiting from some funded early education
January 2017	71%
January 2016	68%
January 2015	58%

Source: Education provision: children under 5 years of age, January 2017; release schedule: annually

Our finances

Departmental expenditure limit (DEL): £73.6 billion

Resource DEL (including depreciation): £68.4 billion

Capital DEL: £5.2 billion

Annually managed expenditure (AME): £15.4 billion

Control totals included in this document are in line with those presented in the ‘Main Supply Estimates 2018/19’ and are currently subject to Parliamentary approval. Any changes arising from the Parliamentary approval process will be reflected in due course.

Source: Main supply estimates 2018/19

Our people

As at 31 December 2017, the Department for Education had 3,670 full-time equivalent employees, not including its agencies.

Source: ONS Public sector employment data; release schedule: quarterly

How we contribute to cross-government priorities

We work across government on cross-cutting issues, including:

• Employment and skills
• Mental health
• Housing
• Industrial Strategy
• Immigration
• Rough sleeping and homelessness reduction
• Race disparity

1. The department collects and publishes a number of metrics to track progress in this area. These indicators represent a sub-set of these. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴