Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to mitigate the impact of rising inflation on post-16 budgets in schools.

The Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2021 (SR21) settlement will provide an extra £1.6 billion for 16-19 education in 2024/25 compared with the 2021/22 financial year in real terms, at the time of the announcement in October 2021. This includes funding to cover the rising demographic of students, additional hours for all 16 to 19-year-olds, aid the recovery of lost learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and for increased take-up of T Levels.

The well-established system of lagged funding for 16-19 education, including further education colleges, sixth forms and school, provides institutions with clear allocations each year based on student data, allowing them to make plans with confidence. Subject to affordability, where institutions see a particularly large increase in student numbers in a year, they typically qualify for exceptional in-year growth funding to help them with the extra costs of these students.

The department has announced how the additional funding from the SR21 will be used for this academic year, 2022/23, including increasing the 16-19 national funding rate from £4,188 to £4,542, the High Value Courses Premium for the most economically valuable subjects from £400 to £600, and looked-after children and care leaver rates from £480 to £504. This follows the extra £691 million allocated in the previous two years and the specific funding made available to help recovery from the pandemic, including the 16-19 Tuition Fund which will make available £400 million over the four academic years from 2020/21 to 2023/24.

In addition, we are investing £3.8 billion more in further education and skills over the course of the Parliament as a whole, to ensure people can access high-quality training and education that leads to good jobs, addresses skills gaps, boosts productivity, and supports levelling up. This will support the sector to reform and deliver the technical, skilled education our economy needs.

The department is aware of the pressures rising inflation is causing providers of post-16 education. The government has announced the Government Energy Bill Relief Scheme, to support non-domestic customers, including further education colleges, sixth forms and schools. The department will continue to monitor the situation to determine our next steps.