Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
13th Report - Improving educational outcomes for disadvantaged children
Public Accounts Committee
HC 365
Published 7 March 2025
Recommendations
21
Deferred
Many schools fail to publish required Pupil Premium strategy statements, with limited departmental follow-up.
Recommendation
In terms of accountability for pupil premium, the Department described schools needing to clearly report how they used funding so governors could use this to provide challenge.63 All schools must publish an up–to–date pupil premium strategy statement setting out their …
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Government Response Summary
The department is reviewing options to improve reporting arrangements for the pupil premium grant, including potential digital solutions by Academic Year 2027-28, and is exploring ways to automate the current data collection and analysis process to obtain better data from schools from Academic Year 2025-26.
HM Treasury
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Conclusions (3)
10
Conclusion
Deferred
The Department considers it has better evidence of pupil premium effectively supporting disadvantaged children, assessing this evidence as strong, compared to that available for the disadvantage and deprivation elements of the national funding formula.27 Despite this, there has been a 3% real–terms reduction in pupil premium funding over the period …
Government Response Summary
The department is reviewing the allocation of core funding for schools, looking at the operation of the schools national funding formula (NFF), including the operation of “additional needs” funding in the NFF, with decisions for 2026-27 onwards informed by this review.
11
Conclusion
Deferred
The Department committed to keeping the balance of funding across different interventions under review.32 It told us that pupil premium and the disadvantage elements of the national funding formula should be considered together–with pupil premium being specifically directed towards disadvantaged children, and the funding formula using disadvantage as a proxy …
Government Response Summary
The department is reviewing the allocation of core funding for schools, looking at the operation of the schools national funding formula (NFF), including the operation of “additional needs” funding in the NFF, with decisions for 2026-27 onwards informed by this review.
12
Conclusion
Deferred
The Department stressed that, without an unlimited budget, it would always need to make trade–offs in its funding decisions.35 It told us it is firstly aiming to increase the proportion of funding targeted towards disadvantage, as it believes this has a greater marginal impact on outcomes for disadvantaged children.36 Secondly, …
Government Response Summary
The department is reviewing the allocation of core funding for schools, looking at the operation of the schools national funding formula (NFF), including the operation of “additional needs” funding in the NFF, with decisions for 2026-27 onwards informed by this review.