Public Accounts Committee

Government lacks ‘coherent plan’ to boost teacher recruitment

MPs also tell ministers to assess how effective pay rises are at retaining staff amid concerns over 6,500 teacher target

DfE officials grilled on SEND: 7 key findings

Senior civil servants were quizzed on the crisis hit SEND system, after a damning report by the National Audit Office last month

DfE needs ‘proper lessons-learned’ Covid review, and 4 more demands from MPs

The Department for Education seems “surprisingly resistant” to the idea of conducting a “proper lessons-learned exercise” on its early response to the Covid-19 pandemic, a group of MPs has warned. The public accounts committee has published a report on support for children’s education during the Covid-19 pandemic. In it, MPs said the DfE had “no […]

MPs question £3m spent on UTC membership body

An influential cross-party group of MPs has raised concerns over the value for money offered by the membership body for university technical colleges, after its cost to the public purse reached £3 million. The costs smack of a far too close, special relationship with too little scrutiny from government and too much entitlement from the […]

DfE’s SEND review must address ‘significant failings’, says Public Accounts Committee

The government’s review of provision for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities must result in “concrete action” to address “significant failings”, an influential committee of MPs has said. An inquiry by the parliamentary public accounts committee found that the education, wellbeing and life-chances of pupils with SEND are being damaged by the government’s failure […]

Public accounts committee SEND inquiry report: Six things the DfE should do

The parliamentary public accounts committee has published a damning report on the support for children with special educational needs and disabilities. The report warns many pupils with SEND are not getting the support they need, and calls for swift action from government to right this injustice. Here are the committee’s six recommendations for the Department […]

Top DfE boss: Our cost-cutting consultants found £10m savings in UTCs

Government cost-saving consultants have been parachuted into most of the country’s university technical colleges to help them tackle soaring deficits, it has been revealed. Jonathan Slater, the Department for Education’s top civil servant, told MPs on the public accounts committee today that school resource management advisers had identified around £10 million of savings in 33 […]

DfE doesn’t check whether academy leaders are ‘fit and proper’

Academy trustees and senior leaders are not being properly vetted for their suitability to run schools, the government’s spending watchdog has warned. Labour MP Meg Hillier, the chair of the powerful public accounts committee said she was “concerned” by the latest report from the National Audit Office, which found that people taking senior jobs at […]

Public accounts committee chair slams ‘exorbitantly expensive’ PFI contracts

The chair of the parliamentary public accounts committee Meg Hillier has spoken out against costly private finance initiative contracts and warned that the scheme’s relaunch as PF2 is little more than a rebrand. “Many local bodies are now shackled to inflexible PFI contracts that are exorbitantly expensive to change,” she said, reflecting the situation faced […]