Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, on what date schools are planned to be able to claim for exceptional costs associated with covid-19, after the first claim window closed on 21 July 2020.

The Government is providing additional funding to schools, on top of existing budgets, to cover unavoidable costs incurred between March and July due to the COVID-19 outbreak that cannot be met from their existing resources.

Schools 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.

The first claims window for the COVID-19 schools fund closed on 21 July. There will be a further opportunity in the autumn for schools to claim for exceptional costs that fell between March and July.

The second claims window will be for available for schools who were unable to claim in the summer and will be for the same eligible cost categories. Details regarding the application process will be published later in the year.

Schools have continued to receive their core funding allocations throughout the COVID-19 outbreak. Following last year’s Spending Round, school budgets are rising by £2.6 billion in 2020-21, £4.8 billion in 2021-22 and £7.1 billion in 2022-23, compared to 2019-20.