Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness and value for money achieved by social media advertising by, for, or on behalf of the National Tutoring Programme; and whether that assessment includes evaluation relative to (a) other forms of advertising by, for, or on behalf of the National Tutoring Programme, and (b) other social media advertising conducted by, for, or on behalf of programmes which are run by, for, or on behalf of his Department.

Since the National Tutoring Programme began in November 2020, over one million courses have started, and the programme remains on track to achieve the ambitious target of delivering two million high quality tuition courses this academic year.

All programme costs are included as part of the £1.1 billion investment in the National Tutoring Programme. All key information about the programme is communicated to schools and the public using a range of media, including social media.

£150,000 is allocated for year 2 of the National Tutoring Programme on all communications activities. Paid-for marketing includes a mixture of digital advertising, social media, public relations and events. £95,000 of the £150,000 has been spent to date.

Independent evaluations of the programme are being carried out, which will focus on pupil progress and also look at school and teacher impacts and explore reasons for non-participation. Separately, we regularly evaluate the awareness of the programme with teachers and parents.