Education and Skills Bill

This is a limited amendment, although the noble Baroness raised wider issues in respect of it. It specifically refers to independent schools, which it would add to the list of institutions in Clause 13 that are required to notify Connexions if a young person drops out of education or training. One of the problems of being a Minister in these debates is that, when you are faced with about 20 questions to answer, if you are lucky you get through half of them, sometimes not even that many, and afterwards you remember the ones that you did not get to. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, asked me in the previous debate whether it is the case that there are requirements on Connexions—and, in future, on local authorities—to maintain the data on participation but no requirements to provide information. That is not the case; there will be substantial requirements to provide information, as indeed there are at the moment. The requirements to provide information are set out in Clause 14 and powers to provide information are set out in Clauses 15 and 16. With regard to the remark of the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, that the existing database is intended only for NEETs, that is emphatically not the case; it covers all 13 to 19 year-olds. Only a very small percentage of young people are currently not captured—about 5 per cent, according to my information. That relates also to the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Perry: it is not the case that at the moment there are vast numbers of young people in respect of whose participation Connexions does not have some data. The number about whom Connexions does not at present have data is very small. As I say, the information requirements are not new. They are set out elaborately in the Learning and Skills Act 2000, which brought Connexions into being. Regarding the independent schools, which cater for about 7 per cent of the cohort and therefore are an important source of information on young people, we are looking at ways to encourage existing good practice on the ground. For example, in some areas Connexions has locally agreed protocols in place with independent schools and we are looking into whether they can be extended so that more information from independent schools is included in the database. However, we are not minded at present to extend statutory duties to independent schools, although we will keep that issue under review.