Recommendation 21

The Department continued to distribute IT equipment during the 2020/21 school year, focusing on disadvantaged children whose schooling had been disrupted or who had been advised to shield for medical reasons.38 The Department told us that by spring 2021 it had distributed nearly 1.3 million devices and that orders were now coming to an end, indicating that schools had enough devices to cover all of their children who were eligible for free school meals.39 The Department said that this provision represented an investment of £400 million in IT equipment for schools.40