Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate his Department has made of the cost of administering the multiplication tables check in schools in each of the next five financial years.

The multiplication tables check (MTC) is developed and delivered by the Standards and Testing Agency (STA), an executive agency of the Department for Education.

The STA’s planned expenditure for the MTC over the next five financial years is currently being considered, and will be dependent upon the outcome of the current (2019) national pilot; as a result, definitive final figures are not available at this time.

However, based on current project spend, service development and project costs to-date, and budget planning assumptions, it is estimated that the check will cost between £650,000 and £700,000 per annum to administer - this equates to around 1.2% of STA’s annual budget. Department officials will be able to confirm the actual figure(s) later in the year.