Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what guidance his Department has issued to academy trusts on ensuring the affordability of school uniforms.

It is for the governing body of a school (or in the case of academies, the academy trust) to decide whether there should be a school uniform, what it will be and how it should be sourced. To support them to do this the department issues best practice guidance which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-uniform.

This makes clear that high priority must be given to cost considerations. The Department’s guidance clearly states that uniform items should be easily available for parents to purchase and schools should keep compulsory branded items to a minimum. It also states that schools should avoid single supplier contracts, but where schools do choose to enter into such contracts, they should be subject to a regular competitive tendering process.

No school uniform should be so expensive as to leave pupils or their families feeling unable to apply to a school. The Government is pleased to support the Private Members' Bill to ‘Make provision for guidance regarding the cost aspects of school uniform policies’ which was recently introduced to Parliament on 5 February. This demonstrates the Government’s commitment to ensuring that school uniform costs are reasonable.