Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 18 October 2018 to Question 179233, whether he plans to provide funding to for-profit providers of independent special schools to meet their increased employer contributions to the Teachers' Pension Scheme.

For 2019-20, the Department estimates that £1.1 billion more will need to be put into the Teachers’ Pension Scheme by employers to ensure teachers’ pensions remain generous and attractive to the profession. This is broken down as down as follows: £830 million from state-funded schools, £110 million from the Independent Sector, £80 million from Further Education Colleges and £80 million from affected Higher Education Institutions.

It is the Government’s intention to fund independent special schools for the costs of increased employer contributions in 2019-20, as these schools often have pupils on education, health and care plans, which are local authority funded, but the Department will be consulting to seek views on this to understand the impact these costs will impose on the independent schools sector.