Schools: Coronavirus

(asked on 10th September 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much funding his Department made available through exceptional costs during the covid-19 outbreak between March and July 2020.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 15th September 2020

We are providing additional funding to schools, on top of existing budgets, to cover unavoidable costs incurred between March and July due to the COVID-19 outbreak that cannot be met from their existing resources.

Schools are eligible to claim for: increased premises related costs associated with keeping schools open over the Easter and summer half term holidays; support for free school meals for eligible children who are not in school, where schools are not using the national voucher scheme; and additional cleaning costs required due to confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases, over and above the cost of existing cleaning arrangements.

The first claims window for the COVID-19 schools fund closed on 21 July. There will be a further opportunity in the autumn for schools to claim for exceptional costs that occurred between March and July. This second claims window will be for available for schools who were unable to claim in the summer and will be for the same eligible cost categories.

Schools have claimed £104 million against the standard expenditure categories in the fund, as set out above. Schools have already received payments of £58 million against the standard expenditure categories.

Reticulating Splines