Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of non-staffing costs on the sustainability of schools in Sutton Coldfield constituency.

The department has published the Schools’ Costs Technical Note, outlining its national-level affordability forecasts and including data on non-staff expenditure, such as energy. This year’s publication and historical editions are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/schools-costs-technical-note.

Schools can access government support with their non-staff costs through the Maximising Value for Pupils programme, which provides tangible support such as the department’s Energy for Schools service and our free Banking Comparison Tool.

Energy is one of schools’ largest non-staff costs. Through the Energy for Schools service, our benchmarking report shows that a typical primary school could save around £2,500 on electricity and £2,400 on gas each year. For secondary schools, those figures rise to around £12,600 on electricity and £10,600 on gas.