Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 19
19
Accepted
Schools increasingly use Pupil Premium to fill budget gaps and fund whole-school interventions.
Conclusion
We challenged the Department on Sutton Trust research from 2024 which found 47% of senior school leaders surveyed were using pupil premium to plug gaps in their budget, up from 23% in 2019.59 The Department said school leaders could still be using this funding on areas that have a good impact for disadvantaged children, such as high–quality teaching. The Education Endowment Foundation found good teachers benefited all pupils, but disadvantaged pupils more. The Department noted that spending funding on teaching aligned with the pupil premium aims, which may be more effective than individual, targeted, or smaller interventions.60 The National Association of Virtual School Heads told us that many schools were reporting using pupil premium for whole school interventions rather than supporting individual children, which the association felt was better.61 57 C&AG’s Report, para 3.2 58 C&AG’s Report, para 16, 17 59 Qq 23–24, 53; The Sutton Trust, School Funding and Pupil Premium Report 2024, 19 April 2024 60 Qq 53, 56 61 IEDO0018 14
Government Response Summary
The government agrees and is reviewing options to improve reporting arrangements for the pupil premium grant by Academic Year 2027-28, and explore ways to automate the current data collection from Academic Year 2025-26.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
4.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target Implementation date: December 2027 4.2 The department is reviewing options to improve reporting arrangements for the pupil premium grant, including potential digital solutions by Academic Year 2027-28. This could support schools’ development of effective, evidence-based pupil premium strategies and provide the department with better data on how schools allocate this funding. The department is also exploring ways to automate the current data collection and analysis process to obtain better data from schools ahead of a digital solution, from Academic Year 2025-26. 4.3 Pupil premium conditions of grant and guidance for school leaders set out reporting requirements for the grant, including the requirement that schools publish an updated strategy statement by 31 December each year. Schools with more than five pupils eligible for pupil premium are required to publish a strategy statement annually on their school website, using a DfE template designed to support effective and efficient strategy development. 4.4 The department currently reviews a sample of pupil premium statements to ensure schools comply with the conditions of grant and that their planned activities align with the department’s evidence-based ‘menu of approaches’. All schools that are non-compliant are contacted by the department and asked to ensure that they publish a compliant statement. Of the schools found to be non-compliant in 2024, only 4% remained non-compliant in March 2025. 4.5 The National Tutoring Programme was designed as a time limited four-year programme to support pupils to catch up on lost learning due to the pandemic. The department invested £1 billion over its four-year life cycle, which ended on 31 August 2024. The department is collecting data on whether pupils are receiving tutoring through the school census in 2024-25.