Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department’s decision to change the pupil premium eligibility date from January 2021 to October 2020 will lead to a £1.2 million reduction in funding for schools in the London Borough of Southwark.

The January 2021 census will be used to determine pupil premium eligibility for alternative provision and pupil referral units for the 2021/22 financial year. Pupil premium eligibility for mainstream and special schools will be based on the October 2020 census.

Per pupil funding rates will be the same as in the 2020/21 financial year, which is expected to increase pupil premium funding from £2.4 billion in the 2020/21 financial year to more than £2.5 billion in the 2021/22 financial year as more children have become eligible for free school meals. In addition to this the Government announced a further £300 million for a one-off Recovery Premium which will be allocated to schools based on the same methodology as the pupil premium. In this way, schools with more disadvantaged pupils will receive larger amounts.

The Department will confirm pupil premium allocations for the 2021/22 financial year in June 2021. This will provide information on the specific amounts that regions, local authorities, and schools are receiving through the pupil premium for the 2021/22 financial year.

The Department publishes information on pupil premium allocations and the number of pupils eligible annually. The most recent publicly available figures can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pupil-premium-allocations-and-conditions-of-grant-2020-to-2021.