Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how much funding his Department allocated to the Continuity of Education Allowance in financial year 2022-23; how many children were covered by that funding; and if he will provide a breakdown of the ranks of the claimants of that allowance.

Continuity of Education Allowance (CEA) assists Service personnel to achieve continuity of education for their children that would otherwise be denied in the state-maintained day school sector due to the mobility of their family, because of consecutive assignments. CEA is available to all Service personnel, irrespective of rank, subject to them satisfying the qualifying criteria. Service personnel may select from a wide variety of schools across the UK from within the independent and state-maintained sectors that meet set criteria. Each claimant is required to contribute at least 10 per cent of the fees at independent schools.

As at 18 April 2023, the total spend on Continuity of Education Allowance (CEA) in Financial Year 2022-23 was £84.59 million. A total of 4,210 children were covered by that funding. The attached table details the number of children supported and the amount spent at each school on Continuity of Education Allowance (CEA) by the Ministry of Defence in the financial year 2022-23.

The below table details the number of Service Personnel that have received CEA in 2022-23 broken down by NATO Rank.

Notes:

Rounded figures are to the nearest five, with numbers below five replaced by the tilde symbol ('~'). All figures have been rounded to the nearest 10, numbers ending in 5 have been rounded to the nearest multiple of 20 to avoid systematic bias. Totals have been rounded separately and therefore may not equal the sum of their rounded parts.

Due to the possibility of rank changes in year between CEA claims, only the most senior rank for each individual has been retained in order to avoid counting the same individual twice.

An explanation of NATO rank equivalencies can be found at the following website: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/tri-service-pension-codes-april-2020/key-to-rank-codes-april-2020