Fifty-Fifth Report - Education recovery in schools in England

Select Committee
Public Accounts Committee HC 998 7 June 2023
Report Status Government responded
Conclusions & Recommendations 29 items (9 recs)
Source View on Parliament website
Government Response (AI assessment · 28 of 29 classified)
Accepted 12
Accepted in Part 5
Acknowledged 2
Not Addressed 2
Rejected 7
Government response
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Fifty-fifth report from Session 2022-23 · published 24 Sep 2023
Read the government response ↗ Response on the tracker
Clear

Recommendations & Conclusions

7 results
7 Conclusion Rejected
Disadvantage gap in pupil attainment widened significantly following the COVID-19 pandemic
Conclusion
Disadvantaged pupils have, on average, lower attainment than other pupils, and results from the Key Stage 1, 2 and 4 tests taken in 2022 showed that this disadvantage gap had grown.12 The Department told us that it had been successfully … Read more
Government Response Summary
The government rejects the implied recommendation, stating that narrowing the disadvantage gap is central to all existing departmental programmes rather than requiring a separate plan. It highlights ongoing £5 billion recovery programmes, the Schools White Paper, and a commitment to continue reviewing progress.
HM Treasury
View Details
8 Conclusion Rejected
Department affirms relentless focus on closing attainment disadvantage gap through recovery programmes
Conclusion
We asked the Department when we would see the disadvantage gap start to close. The Department insisted that closing the gap in attainment had been the relentless focus of its education recovery work, and that almost every element of the … Read more
Government Response Summary
The government rejects the implied recommendation, stating that narrowing the disadvantage gap is central to all existing departmental programmes rather than requiring a separate plan. It highlights ongoing £5 billion recovery programmes, the Schools White Paper, and a commitment to continue reviewing progress.
HM Treasury
View Details
9 Conclusion Rejected
Department expects disadvantage gap to narrow from summer 2023 with current measures
Conclusion
The Department told us that it hoped to see the disadvantage gap narrowing again from summer 2023.16 It accepted that one could always do more, but believed it now had a strong package of measures in place. The measures included … Read more
Government Response Summary
The government disagrees with the committee's conclusion (which they perceived as a recommendation) about the Department's hopes for narrowing the disadvantage gap, reaffirming its commitment to doing so as quickly as possible through current programmes.
HM Treasury
View Details
10 Conclusion Rejected
Department's strategy risks a decade to return disadvantage gap to pre-pandemic levels.
Conclusion
We pressed the Department on when it hoped to eliminate the disadvantage gap completely. It told us that no country in the world had completely eliminated its 10 ERS0003 The Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition page 1; ERS0005 … Read more
Government Response Summary
The government disagrees with the committee's implied challenge to reduce the disadvantage gap faster, stating its commitment to narrowing the gap as quickly as possible through existing programmes and the Schools White Paper, rather than a separate plan.
HM Treasury
View Details
27 Recommendation Rejected
Set clear metrics and specific targets for education recovery programme impact.
Recommendation
In 2021, we recommended that the Department should set out clear metrics that it would use to monitor the catch-up programme, and indicate what level of performance would represent success, and the Department agreed with this recommendation.53 However, although the … Read more
Government Response Summary
The government rejects the recommendation to set clear metrics and targets for the impact of education recovery interventions. It states it already publishes national attainment data, key performance indicators, and outlines ambitions in the Schools White Paper to measure progress across the school system.
HM Treasury
View Details
28 Recommendation Rejected
Department set long-term attainment ambitions but lacks interim progress milestones.
Recommendation
In the March 2022 Schools White Paper, the Department set ambitions that, by 2030, 90% of primary school children would achieve the expected standard in reading, writing and maths, and the percentage of children meeting the expected standard in the … Read more
Government Response Summary
The government disagrees with the recommendation to set explicit milestones for its 2030 ambitions, arguing that existing national attainment data, KPIs, and forthcoming statistics already provide sufficient measures of progress.
HM Treasury
View Details
29 Conclusion Rejected
Department relies on outdated Outcome Delivery Plan metrics for tracking progress and accountability.
Conclusion
The Department pointed us to the performance metrics that it published every year in its Outcome Delivery Plan. It said that it published a wide range of metrics at Key Stages 2 and 4, and the results of Key Stage … Read more
Government Response Summary
The government rejects the implicit recommendation concerning its performance metrics, stating it already publishes national attainment data for various key stages and critical programmes. It indicates these, along with ambitions in the Schools White Paper, collectively provide measures for progress.
HM Treasury
View Details