Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much funding her Department has provided towards supplying schools with (a) tablets, (b) laptops and (c) other electronic devices to children since 2015, broken down by (i) local authority area and (ii) year.

Schools, trusts and local authorities can use their budgets at their discretion to purchase technology for their pupils. The department does not mandate a specific device to pupil ratio or recommend how much funding should be allocated for devices.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the department delivered over 1.95 million laptops and tablets to schools, academy trusts and local authorities in England through the ‘Get Help With Technology’ programme, launched in March 2020, which supported remote learning for disadvantaged children. The last devices were delivered by March 2022 and the service closed in June 2022.

The programme represented an investment of approximately £400 million, covering procurement and distribution of devices, alongside connectivity support for families without internet access.

Data on dispatched devices is published in statistical releases via the Explore Education Statistics portal here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/laptops-and-tablets-data/2022-april.

The department monitors pupil access to devices via the Technology in Schools Survey here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/technology-in-schools-survey-report-2022-to-2023.