Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department has plans to reimburse schools in Southwark for additional costs resulting from the covid-19 outbreak.

Schools will continue to receive their budgets for the coming year, as usual, regardless of any periods of partial or complete closure.

We are providing additional funding to schools, on top of existing budgets, to cover unavoidable costs incurred due to the COVID-19 outbreak that cannot be met from their existing resources.

Schools, including those in Southwark, are eligible to claim for 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 are not in school, where schools are 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.

Further information on this funding can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-financial-support-for-schools