Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking during the covid-19 outbreak to (a) help schools cover the additional costs incurred and (b) provide additional emergency funding to help meet exceptional costs that would otherwise have been met from schools' reserves where these have been exhausted during the covid-2019 outbreak; and if he will make a statement.

The Department has provided a range of additional support to schools, on top of existing budgets, in relation the COVID-19 outbreak.

To cover unavoidable costs incurred between March and July 2020, schools have been eligible to claim for funding for three specific categories of spend:

• Increased premises related costs associated with keeping schools open over the Easter and summer half term holidays;
• Support for free school meals for eligible children who were not in school, where schools were not using the national voucher scheme; and
• Additional cleaning costs required due to confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases, over and above the cost of existing cleaning arrangements.

The Department has paid schools £102 million for all claims in the first claims window within the published scope of the fund, and we will shortly process claims made in the second window that was open in December.

In addition, last term the Department announced a COVID-19 Workforce Fund for schools and colleges, to help those with high staff absences and facing significant financial pressures to stay open. This has funded the costs of teacher absences over a threshold between 1 November 2020 until the end of the autumn term. We expect the schools claims form to be launched in spring 2021.

The Department will fund school and colleges which have remained open for costs relating to testing. We will publish a replacement workforce planning tool which will illustrate the levels of funding available.

In addition, the Department has provided schools with extensive support for online education during the COVID-19 outbreak, and will spend £1 billion over the 2020/21 academic year so that schools can support pupils to catch up.

Schools have continued to receive their core funding throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, regardless of any periods of full or partial closure, with this year marking the first year of a three-year increase to core funding - the biggest in a decade. This will ensure they can continue to pay their staff and meet other regular financial commitments. Schools should use these existing resources when making arrangements for this academic year.

Ministers and officials continue to engage regularly with school leaders and their representatives on a wide range of issues around COVID-19, including discussions in relation to costs faced by schools at this time.