To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how much funding his Department has allocated towards increasing parental engagement in (a) Mid Bedfordshire and (b) the East of England schools in each year since 1997. (278567)

The Government are committed to supporting parental engagement. That support can take many forms at a local level such as targeted support and family learning. In the Children's Plan: Progress Report published in December 2008 we outlined further measures to support parents, schools and early years settings in engaging parents as partners in their children's learning—comprising action to support parents and to prioritise parental engagement throughout the education system.

It is important that support for parental engagement is embedded in the day to day work of professionals in schools and early years settings and is established as part of the core business of those organisations.

This means a variety of funding routes should be used to support parental engagement. However, the main initiatives that cover parental engagement in schools are extended services including parent support advisors and family learning interventions.

Because parental engagement is only one element of extended services and decisions are made locally about spending and priorities, it is only possible to give overall Government funding on these programmes for this area. Details of funding for these programmes since their inception is set out in the following table.