Education
Education shapes every life chance the state can influence, from early years to university. Policy here covers school funding and standards, teacher recruitment and retention, special educational needs provision that is widely agreed to be in crisis, childcare costs, university finance and the balance between academic and vocational routes. It is an area where the effects of decisions take years to show and where quick savings can do lasting damage, which makes scrutiny of what is promised against what is funded particularly important.
The department responsible
Decides what England's children learn, who pays for it, and which exam reform we're definitely committing to this time.
The Broken State
Public services performance
Latest official figures for these public services, with the direction of each measure over the long term. 1 worsening over the long term.
MPs scrutinising this most
By written questions tabled to the department this Parliament.
1. James McMurdock Independent4842. Rt Hon Damian Hinds Conservative2773. Mr Andrew Snowden Conservative2764. Jim Shannon Democratic Unionist Party1685. Lee Anderson Reform UK156Recent Commons votes
Bills and Acts
Investigations
In 2018, a Department for Education presentation gave prospective students one example of what repayment might cost. A graduate earning £27,000 would repay £15 a month. Neither that presentation nor an earlier one made clear that governments retained the power to change important loan terms after the money had been borrowed. The Treasury Committee says that amounted to wrongly selling.
Private companies provide 74 per cent of children's home places in England. The Department for Education told MPs it still does not fully understand what a reasonable price for residential care should be. That leaves councils buying places in a market where they have a legal duty to find a home for a child, shortages can leave them competing against one another for the same beds, and the department responsible does not have direct sight of the contracts behind the prices being charged.