Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what is the average cost to the public purse per participant supported by the Turing Scheme.

The department cannot currently calculate the actual average cost to the public purse per participant supported by the Turing Scheme in each academic year. Currently the only data available are the allocated funding amounts and projected participant numbers published on the Turing Scheme website. These will differ from actual expenditure and participation figures.

The department will shortly be publishing actual data regarding the international mobilities that were delivered in the first year of the Turing Scheme, the 2021/22 academic year, including the actual number of participants and expenditure by organisations who received Turing Scheme funding. The department will also be publishing finalised data for the 2022/23 academic year in the coming months, following collection of final reports from participating education providers and other organisations in the Turing Scheme, analysis and quality assurance.

Funding was allocated for 41,024, 38,374, and 40,206 planned participants in the 2021/22, 2022/23, and 2023/24 academic years respectively. The total cost to the public purse of the Turing Scheme is not known until final reporting is complete.