Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department his made of the differential impact of increases to per pupil funding, as announced on 27 October 2021, between the (a) most deprived and (b) least deprived fifth of schools.

The Autumn 2021 Spending Review delivers an additional £4.7 billion for the core schools budget by financial year 2024-25, compared to previous plans. That includes an additional £1.6 billion for schools and high needs in financial year 2022-23, on top of the funding we have previously announced. The department will confirm in due course how this additional funding for financial year 2022-23, and for the two subsequent years, will be allocated for schools and high needs.

In summer 2021 the department announced that, next year, funding through the schools national funding formula (NFF) is increasing by 3.2% overall, and by 2.8% per pupil, compared to financial year 2021-22. The NFF continues to distribute this fairly, based on the needs of schools and their pupil cohorts. The NFF is levelling up school funding by increasing core factors of the formula (such as the basic per-pupil funding rate, and deprivation factors) by 3%, while also ensuring that every school is allocated at least 2% more pupil-led per pupil funding. As part of that increase, the amount allocated towards deprivation in the financial year 2022-23 NFF is increasing by £225 million, or 6.7%, compared to financial year 2021-22.

The NFF targets funding to schools which have the greatest numbers of pupils with additional needs. In the 2022-23 financial year, the NFF is providing a total of £6.7 billion (17%) targeted at schools with higher numbers of pupils with additional needs, including deprivation. In addition, the department is allocating £2.5 billion in financial year 2021-22 through the pupil premium, to support schools to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils. Allocations for the pupil premium in 2022-23 will be made in March 2022.

This funding is in addition to the three major interventions we have made to support education recovery in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, and the 2021 Spending Review provided an additional £1 billion for a Recovery Premium over the academic years of 2022/23 and 2023/24. Both the Recovery Premium and the National Tutoring Programme (which we have committed £1.2 billion since June 2020, including £579 million paid directly to schools to employ new or existing school staff as tutors), are directing funding based pupil premium eligibility figures, to ensure appropriate funding reaches schools facing the greatest challenges.