Coronavirus (COVID-19) summer schools programme funding: conditions of funding for schools and local authorities
Updated 13 September 2021
Applies to England
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The Secretary of State for Education is providing financial assistance to eligible schools and local authorities for their maintained schools, as stated in section 14 of the Education Act 2002, in the form of the coronavirus (COVID-19) summer schools programme fund (SSPF). The fund is to enable face-to-face summer schools in the summer of 2021.
1. Aim of the programme
The aim of the programme, drawing on the evidence of good practice, is to deliver a short summer school, offering a blend of academic education and enrichment activities.
2. Eligible schools
Funding will be made available to state funded secondary and special schools, non-maintained special schools and pupil referral units. It will also be made available to alternative provision for any pupils whose education was funded by the local authority outside of state place funded schools, including independent schools and other providers.
Maintained schools will receive their funding via the local authority. All other providers will receive their funding directly. If you have not previously received funding directly from DfE or ESFA, please provide your organisation’s bank details.
3. Purpose and permitted use of summer schools programme fund
SSPF must be used for the following purpose:
a. To deliver face-to-face summer schools during the 2021 school summer holidays to pupils identified by the school as being most in need of educational recovery and/or wellbeing support.
In delivering a summer school, schools must meet the following conditions:
3.1 Summer school general requirements
a. The summer school must include a mix of academic and enrichment activity.
b. Schools must provide meals for pupils attending summer schools. Meals must be free of charge for any pupil who is eligible for free school meals.
c. Drinking water must be provided free of charge at all times to pupils on the school premises.
d. Schools must follow the coronavirus (COVID-19) guidance for schools in place at the time that the summer school takes place.
e. Schools must have regard to health and safety guidelines.
f. Schools must have regard to the statutory guidance on keeping children safe in education.
3.2 Value for money
g. Schools must seek to maximise attendance at summer school for those pupils that are due to attend, in order to achieve best value for money.
h. Where a school has information that enables it to know that pupils who were due to attend will not do so, the school must take all reasonable steps to reduce the costs of their summer school provision accordingly.
i. If schools come to a local arrangement that means that places are delivered more cheaply than the unit rate, then they must only reclaim actual costs up to the maximum of their allocation.
3.3 Required record keeping
j. Schools must keep a daily attendance record of pupils attending the summer school.
k. Schools must keep receipted records of summer school costs. These must be kept available for inspection, either as part of a spot check on summer school expenditure or as part of an audit.
l. Schools and local authorities must provide information, as may be required by the Secretary of State, to determine whether they have complied with these conditions.
m. Schools must publish brief details of their summer school on their website by the end of October 2021. This should include the amount of funding received and a breakdown of how it was spent.
3.4 Required notification
n. Schools must confirm their summer school places to DfE via the confirmation form by the end of June. Schools must complete the June summer schools confirmation form and the September claim form to be assured of funding.
The maximum amount of funding a school can claim will not exceed their confirmed allocation. The claim amount will include both the per pupil day amount, for those who attended, plus any unrecoverable costs associated with pupils who did not attend a provided place.
‘Unrecoverable costs’ are defined as sunk costs that are already irreversibly committed or spent and cannot be recovered. They will occur where pupil numbers fall below forecast and these costs cannot be reduced in line with actual attendance.
If places are delivered more cheaply than the unit rate, schools must only reclaim actual costs up to the maximum of their allocation.
Example 1:
A mainstream school has £41,790 as a confirmed total allocation. This equates to 70 pupils attending a two-week summer programme, that the school confirmed in June that they would offer. 68 pupils did attend, so the total claim calculated by per pupil day amount for those who attended is £40,596.
The total cost of running the summer schools programme was £41,000 including all unrecoverable costs.
The school will be able to claim £41,000 (£40,596 by per pupil day place attended plus £404 in additional unrecoverable costs).
Example 2:
A special school has £21,492 as its confirmed total allocation. This equates to 12 pupils attending over 2 weeks at the uplift daily rate of £179.10 that the school confirmed in June that they would offer. 9 pupils did attend, so the total claim calculated by per pupil day amount for those who attended is £16,119.
The total cost of running the summer schools programme was £19,701 including all unrecoverable costs.
The school will be able to claim £19,701
As usual, we reserve the right to audit the expenditure and claw back money if claims have not been made in accordance with the guidance, in order to protect public spending. We will be carrying out assurance checks on a sample of the claims.
Schools and local authorities must notify DfE immediately through the ESFA enquiry form where they become aware of any instance of error, suspected fraud or financial irregularity in the claim. Any overpayment shall be recovered against the general annual grant (GAG) funding by ESFA on behalf of the Secretary of State.
4. Specific conditions for new free schools
Free schools in pre-opening must adhere to the following conditions, in addition to those set in this document for all other schools. New free schools:
- must be due to open in September 2021 to be eligible for summer school funding
- must have their funding agreement signed and in place before the start of their summer school programme
- must have the appropriate commercial insurance cover in place or be a member of the risk protection arrangement as an alternative
5. Specific conditions for local authorities
Local authorities must comply with the following with respect to SSPF:
a. On receipt of confirmed claims from ESFA, the local authority is required to distribute the fund to all eligible schools for which they are responsible.
b. Local authorities must comply with condition a. above, irrespective of any deficit relating to the expenditure of the school’s budget share.
c. SSPF is not part of schools’ budget shares and is not part of the individual school’s budget. It is not to be counted for the purpose of calculating the minimum funding guarantee for schools or the special schools protection (also referred to as the minimum funding guarantee).
d. Local authorities will be required to certify that they have passed on the correct amount of funding to schools and that it has been spent in line with these conditions of funding. We will issue a certification form in April 2022.
6. Variation
The basis for allocation of this grant may be varied by the Secretary of State for Education from those set out above.
7. Overpayments
Any overpayment of summer schools programme funding by ESFA to a school or local authority shall be repaid by the school or local authority upon such terms and conditions as ESFA or the Secretary of State for Education shall determine.
8. Further information
a) Books and other documents and records relating to the recipient’s accounts shall be open to inspection by the Secretary of State for Education and by the Comptroller and Auditor General.
b) The Comptroller and Auditor General may, under section 6 of the National Audit Act 1983, carry out examinations into the economy, efficiency and effectiveness with which the recipient has used its resources in discharging its funded activities.
c) Schools and local authorities shall provide information as may be required by the Secretary of State to determine whether they have complied with these conditions.
d) Failure to provide this information may result in the Secretary of State recovering funding.