To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many schools were classed as requiring significant improvement in each reporting period since 2005. (150682)

The following table gives the number of schools that were judged to require significant improvement in each term since September 2005 and the number of schools that were removed from this Ofsted category. A school which requires significant improvement is normally re-inspected after around 12 months, when they are either removed from the category, kept in the category for a further 12 months or are placed in special measures.

The most recent information published by Ofsted was for the spring term this year.

To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what estimate he has made of the expected cost to the public purse of school improvement partners in each year from 2007-08 to 2010-11. (150876)

The Department for Children, Schools and Families provides two streams of funding for school improvement partners (SIPs). First, it contributes to the cost to local authorities of providing a SIP for every secondary school and, from April 2008, for every primary school and every special school. The funding is to help local authorities meet the cost of the SIP programme additional to that of previous local authority link adviser arrangements. The funding will be £15.8 million in financial year 2007-08. Allocations of funding for SIPs for 2008-11 will be announced in the autumn as part of wider announcements for the next CSR period.

The second stream of funding is part of the Department's central support provided by the Primary and Secondary National Strategies. The SIP element of that support covers SIPs' accreditation, support to local authorities for introducing and managing SIPs, quality assurance of the programme and regional and national co-ordination of the work of SIPs. The cost of this in 2007-08 is £8.7 million. The cost of this work will vary annually depending on the level of support required and is also subject to the announcement of allocations for 2008-11 in the autumn.

Both streams of funding have a direct and beneficial impact on the resource available to schools to help with school improvement and raising standards.

To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what additional resources his Department provides to schools classified as causing concern to help them improve. (151239)

A range of resources is made available by my Department to support schools causing concern. This includes guidance on such schools (available on the DCSF Standards website); central funding from a variety of sources, including the Fresh Start programme, that is paid to local authorities through the Standards Fund; a number of intervention and capacity building programmes such as the Raising Attainment in Teaching and Learning (RAIL) programme for secondary schools and the Intensifying Support Programme (ISP) for primary schools; and a network of school improvement delivery agencies some of whose work includes the provision of teaching materials and consultancy support.

Every local authority has been allocated a share of an additional £30 million, over the 2006-07 and 2007-08 financial years, to support their school improvement work. Additional funding is also available from my Department's interventions budget, to support specific school improvement projects.

To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many schools which are private finance initiative funded were (a) categorised as causing concern and (b) placed in special measures in each of the last five years. (151459)

The Department does not centrally hold information specifically on how many PFI schools are categorised as causing concern or placed in special measures. This level of detailed information is held at local authority level for PFI funded schools.