Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that (a) quality, (b) sustainability and (c) cost considerations are prioritised in school uniform policy.

It is for the governing body of a school (or in the case of academies, the academy trust) to decide whether there should be a school uniform policy and what it should be.

To support them to do this, the Department has issued best practice guidance, which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-uniform. This makes clear that high priority must be given to cost considerations.

Governing bodies should be able to demonstrate that they have obtained the best value for money from suppliers. Governing bodies should also consider the available supply sources and year round availability of the proposed uniform.

The Government supports the recently introduced Private Members’ Bill to ‘Make provision for guidance about the cost aspects of school uniform policies’, which will place a duty on the Secretary of State to issue statutory guidance pertaining to cost aspects of school uniform policies.