Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to help mitigate the loss of income from facility hire by schools during the covid-19 lockdown restrictions.

We recognise that over the last three months, schools will have lost income from facility hire and this will put pressure on budgets.

Where schools have members of staff delivering services funded from self-generated income, we have advised that they should first look to redeploy these staff or use existing budgets to absorb the cost. After having looked at all other options, schools have been able to consider using the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. The Department has provided additional guidance for schools in this situation which can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-financial-support-for-education-early-years-and-childrens-social-care/coronavirus-covid-19-financial-support-for-education-early-years-and-childrens-social-care.