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Minister probes schools’ use of £2.6bn fund

Minister probes schools’ use of £2.6bn fund

Gullis said he feared some schools spend the £2.6bn grant ‘in ways that the funding is not intended’

Gullis said he feared some schools spend the £2.6bn grant ‘in ways that the funding is not intended’

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The new schools minister is “looking at” how schools use the pupil premium to make sure some schools are not spending it “in ways that the funding is not intended”.

Jonathan Gullis told a fringe event that he wanted to examine whether the £2.6 billion for disadvantaged pupils was “being used to really target and drive attainment, improve attendance, help with behaviour”.

But government sources this week denied this would be a formal review of the policy. Instead, the Department for Education will work with the Education Endowment Foundation to provide better guidance for how the money can best be spent.

Created under the coalition government, the premium is paid to schools for each pupil who has been eligible for free school meals at any point in the previous six years.

Headteachers choose how to spend the grant, although government guidance points to evidence that shows it is most effective when used to support high-quality teaching and address “barriers to success”, such as attendance and behaviour.

Since last year, schools have had to demonstrate “how their spending decisions are informed by research evidence”.

‘Plenty of good examples’ of pupil premium use

“I’m sure there are plenty of examples in schools where that is happening well, but I do worry … that money is at times being used in other ways, in ways that the funding is not intended,” Gullis said.

“I want to make sure that that money, a significant amount of funding, is used in the appropriate way.”

Any formal review would likely create extreme anxiety in schools at a time when the Treasury is trying to find efficiency savings to fund tax cuts promised in the government’s mini budget.

It follows calls on the government to increase the premium after schools were told they would have to raid their own coffers to pay for tutoring when government subsidies ended.

Tutoring is one of the interventions the government has recommended for pupil premium spending.

Ministers also said earlier this year they would “make it easier” for schools to use the £2.6 billion annual funding to “support literacy and numeracy skills where needed”.

However, the fund would retain its “core focus” on improving attainment for disadvantaged pupils, they said.

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‘No recourse to public funds’ FSM extension made permanent

‘No recourse to public funds’ FSM extension made permanent

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The government will permanently extend free school meals eligibility to children with “no recourse to public funds”, who were previously excluded because of their parents’ immigration status.

Children’s minister Will Quince announced today that the government will make permanent its extension of free school meals to children from families with “no recourse to public funds”. These children will also continue to attract pupil premium funding.

In England, pupils in year 3 and above are eligible for means-tested free school meals if their families receive certain benefits. But some children, some of whom are British citizens, were excluded because their parents were subject to immigration control.

Following threats of legal action, free school meals eligibility was temporarily extended to these children in April 2020 as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

It was then announced in 2021 that schools could claim pupil premium funding for children temporarily given FSM access, again following legal threats.

Change comes after ‘cross-government review’

Quince said today that the extension would be made permanent from April 19, following a “cross-government review”.

Those affected by the original extension included children supported under section 17 of the children act 1989 but whose families are subject to a restriction meaning they have “no recourse to public funds”.

It also covered the children of failed asylum seekers who are reliant on support from the Home Office under section 4 of the immigration and asylum act 1999.

The other two groups covered were the children of Zambrano carers – non-EEA citizens with a child or dependent adult who is British – and the children of those granted leave to remain until article eight of the European Convention on Human Rights.

All children from families with “no recourse to public funds” will now be eligible for free school meals, subject to certain income thresholds.

However, it is not clear whether children from families with insecure immigration status will also be covered.

Eligibility subject to income and savings thresholds

The thresholds for the extension are £22,700 outside London for families with one child, £31,200 for one-child families in London, £26,300 for multi-child families outside London and £34,800 for multi-child families in the capital.

The thresholds were developed “to create comparative thresholds with broad equivalence with families with recourse to public funds, and who qualify for free school meals due to being in receipt of welfare benefits”.

The government will also set a capital savings threshold of £16,000, the same maximum capital threshold which is in place for access to universal credit.

Newly eligible free school meals pupils will be recorded in “exactly the same way” as others, and guidance will be published on how schools should check and validate eligibility.

Children will attract pupil premium funding

All children in receipt of free school meals will attract pupil premium funding for their school, and dependent on meeting other criteria, will also be able to receive free home to school transport.

The government will “provide funding to meet the additional costs incurred through the established processes”.

Praxis, a charity that supports and campaigns for migrants and refugees, welcomed today’s announcement.

Policy and public affairs manager Josephine Whitaker-Yilmaz said the decision “ensures that children living in poverty, who were denied access to the welfare safety net by their family’s immigration status, get guaranteed access to one hot, freshly-cooked and nutritionally balanced meal a day”.

“At a time when the cost of living is rising rapidly, this decision could not come at a better time for many of the families we work with.”

But she said the government must “urgently clarify whether children in families with insecure immigration status…will also benefit from this measure.”
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