Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the affordability to parents who need to purchase new school uniforms as schools change their status and introduce a different uniform.

It is for the governing body to determine a school’s uniform policy, but the Department has issued best practice guidance for all schools on the need to give high priority to the consideration of cost for parents. The guidance is available at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-uniform.

The guidance emphasises the importance of ensuring that uniform is widely available and affordable for parents. It sets out that governing bodies should be able to demonstrate that they have obtained the best value for money from suppliers, and that any savings negotiated with suppliers should be passed on to parents wherever possible. It also makes clear that compulsory branded items should be kept to a minimum; and that schools should avoid frequent changes to the uniform.

Local authorities and academies have discretion within their budgets to provide school clothing grants or offer other help with the cost of school clothing in cases of financial hardship.

In November 2014 the Chancellor and the Business Secretary launched ‘A better deal: Boosting competition to bring down bills for families and firms’ which set out concrete steps the Government is taking to secure rising living standards and create competitive business conditions for firms. This included tackling the cost of school uniforms. The Government wants to ensure that effective competition is used to drive better value for money and will therefore put existing best practice guidance for school uniform supply in England on a statutory footing. This will ensure that schools deliver the best value for parents by avoiding exclusivity arrangements unless regular competitions for suppliers are run.