In June 2012 the Department for Education committed a breach of the UK's Data Protection Act due to a security flaw on its website which made email addresses, passwords and comments of people responding to consultation documents available for download.[5]
The department is led by the Secretary of State for Education. The Permanent Secretary from December 2020 is Susan Acland-Hood.[3] DfE is responsible for education, children's services, higher and further education policy, apprenticeships, and wider skills in England, and equalities. The predecessor department employed the equivalent of 2,695 staff as of April 2008 and as at June 2016, DfE had reduced its workforce to the equivalent of 2,301 staff.[7] In 2015–16, the DfE has a budget of £58.2bn, which includes £53.6bn resource spending and £4.6bn of capital investments.
Ministers
The Department for Education's ministers are as follows, with cabinet members in bold:[8]
Overall responsibility for the department; early years; children's social care; teacher recruitment and retention; the school curriculum; school improvement; academies and free schools; further education; apprenticeships and skills; higher education.
School accountability and inspection (including links with Ofsted); Standards and Testing Agency and primary assessment; supporting a high-quality teaching profession including professional development; supporting recruitment and retention of teachers and school leaders including initial teacher training; Teaching Regulation Agency; National Tutoring Programme; Education Investment Areas (jointly with Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Minister for the School and College System)); school revenue funding, including the national funding formula for schools; school efficiency and commercial policy; pupil premium; behaviour, attendance and exclusions; school sport; digital strategy and technology in education (EdTech).
Strategy for post-16 education; T Levels; qualifications reviews (levels 3 and below); higher technical education (levels 4 and 5); apprenticeships and traineeships; funding for education and training for 16 to 19 year olds; further education workforce and funding; Institutes of Technology; local skills improvement plans and Local Skills Improvement Fund; adult education, including basic skills, the National Skills Fund and the UK Shared Prosperity Fund; higher education quality; student experience and widening participation in higher education; student finance and the Lifelong Loan Entitlement (including the Student Loans Company); international education strategy and the Turing Scheme.
Strategy for schools, including standards and selection; qualifications (including links with Ofqual); curriculum including relationships, sex, and health education and personal, social, health and economic education; admissions and school transport; early years and childcare; children's social care; children in care, children in need, child protection, adoption and care leavers; disadvantaged and vulnerable children; families, including family hubs and early childhood support; special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), including high needs funding; alternative provision; school food, including free school meals; children and young people's mental health, online safety and preventing bullying in schools; policy to protect against serious violence.
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the School System and Student Finance
Academies and multi-academy trusts; free schools and university technical colleges; faith schools; independent schools; home education and supplementary schools; intervention in underperforming schools and school improvement; school governance; school capital investment (including pupil place planning); Education Investment Areas (jointly with Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Minister for the School Standards)); education provision and outcomes for 16 to 19 year olds; college governance and accountability; intervention and financial oversight of further education colleges; careers education, information and guidance including the Careers and Enterprise Company; reducing the number of young people who are not in education, employment or training; safeguarding in schools and post-16 settings; counter extremism in schools and post-16 settings; departmental efficiency and commercial policy.
The Department for Education released a new National Curriculum for schools in England for September 2014, which included 'Computing'.[19] Following Michael Gove's speech in 2012,[20] the subject of Information Communication Technology (ICT) has been disapplied and replaced by Computing. With the new curriculum, materials have been written by commercial companies, to support non-specialist teachers, for example, '100 Computing Lessons' by Scholastic. The Computing at Schools organisation[21] has created a 'Network of Teaching Excellence'to support schools with the new curriculum.[22]
Post-16 area reviews
In 2015, the department announced a major restructuring of the further education sector, through 37 area reviews of post-16 provision.[23] The
proposals were criticised by NUS Vice President for Further Education Shakira Martin for not sufficiently taking into account the impact on learners;[24][25] the Sixth Form Colleges' Association similarly criticised the reviews for not directly including providers of post-16 education other than colleges, such as school and academy sixth forms and independent training providers.[26]
Funding and grants
In 2018, The Department for Education confirmed their commitment to forming positive relationships with the voluntary and community sector.[27]
In 2020 the department began funding the National Tutoring Programme which employed private companies to deliver the tuition including at least one which uses children as tutors, paying them £1.57 per hour.[28] Tutors received up to £25 of the between £72 and £84 per hour the government paid the companies.[29]
^ This article incorporates text published under the British Open Government Licence: "Our ministers". GOV.UK. Department for Education. Retrieved 27 September 2022.
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