Education: Finance

(asked on 27th October 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of education recovery funding to tackle cost pressures incurred by schools as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.


Answered by
Robin Walker Portrait
Robin Walker
This question was answered on 4th November 2021

Helping children and young people to catch up is a key priority which is why, in this Spending Review, the department has announced a further £1.8 billion in dedicated support for education recovery. This takes government investment to just under £5 billion for an ambitious, multi-year approach for education recovery across early years, schools and 16-19.

The department has consistently targeted recovery funding where the evidence tells us it will be most effective, on tutoring and teaching, £650 million has already gone directly to schools via our catch-up premium, with more than £300 million going direct to schools this academic year via the recovery premium. Our recent announcement includes an additional £1 billion recovery premium for schools over the next two academic years (2022/23 and 2023/24).

Direct recovery funding comes on top of wider increases to early years, schools and college funding. Schools will receive an additional £4.7 billion in core funding in the 2024-25 financial year, including £1.6 billion in the 2022-23 financial year on top of already planned increases from the 2019 Spending Review, which is equivalent to a total cash increase of £1,500 per pupil between 2019-20 and 2024-25 financial years.

Additional funding via the Covid Exceptional Costs fund has also been provided to schools, which reimbursed them for costs identified as the biggest barrier to operating as they needed to between March and July 2020, to support vulnerable children and children of critical workers. The department has paid schools £139 million for all claims within the published scope of the fund across both application windows.

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