Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether unspent funds from the Multiply Programme will be returned to HM Treasury.

Local authorities in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland can access up to £430 million across the three years of the Multiply programme. Multiply is provided as a Section 31 ringfenced grant in England. The grant arrangements for Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are set out in the United Kingdom Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) prospectus.

There is flexibility for places to approach the delivery of interventions in response to their local needs so they can effectively support a critical skill area.

The department’s prospectus for Multiply set out a menu of interventions for local areas to draw from. Each local authority in England has submitted an investment plan, which outlines their annual predicted spend. Payments in Year 1, the 2022/23 financial year, have been made on that basis.

The department will monitor delivery against these investment plans, including facilitating peer support across local areas and sharing best practice. It is important that local interventions deliver value for money. Any underspends will be recovered by the department. Further information on how underspends will be managed is set out in our technical guidance available to all local areas.

HM Treasury rules stipulate that the department cannot carry underspends between financial years. This also applies to the wider programme.