Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department plans to allocate funding additional to existing funding arrangements, known as the minimum growth award, to colleges that are facing increased pressure on their bursary budgets as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.

Each year, we revisit the method used for awarding growth and the thresholds at which individual institutions become eligible for a growth award, with the key considerations being the levels of growth in the sector and affordability.

In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, we have amended the method for calculating growth awards for this year. This allows for more colleges that have seen an increase in student numbers for the 2020/21 academic year to receive extra funding to help them with the cost of supporting these additional students.

As well as providing additional programme funding, an increased student number allocation resulting from this process may also result in increased 16-19 bursary funds and further education free meals allocations to institutions. In addition, we are releasing additional bursary funding outside the main growth process where analysis of the data suggested that an increased student number could put an institution’s bursary allocation under considerable pressure.

We are contacting the institutions eligible for additional extra funding directly.

We continue to keep the Bursary Fund situation under review, including gathering evidence, with a view to considering what more we can do to support students and providers through this difficult time.