Pupil premium 2022 to 2023: conditions of grant for local authorities
Updated 23 March 2023
Applies to England
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1. Introduction
The Secretary of State for Education lays down the following terms and conditions on which assistance is given in relation to the pupil premium grant (PPG) payable to local authorities for the financial year beginning 1 April 2022.
The pupil premium rates and detailed eligibility criteria for the financial year 2022 to 2023 are set out in the PPG technical note.
PPG funding is allocated to local authorities for two separate policies :
1.1 Raising the educational attainment of disadvantaged pupils of all abilities to help them reach their potential
PPG is allocated to local authorities, who must distribute it to each school they maintain based on the number of pupils in year groups reception to year 11, who are:
- Recorded as eligible for free school meals, or have been recorded as eligible at any point in the last 6 years (FSM Ever 6). This includes eligible children of families who have no recourse to public funds (NRPF).
- Previously looked-after children (PLAC): pupils who were looked after by an English or Welsh local authority immediately before being adopted, or who left local authority care on a special guardianship order or child arrangements order (previously known as a residence order).
PPG is also allocated to local authorities based on the number of looked-after children (LAC) supported by the authority. LAC are defined in the Children Act 1989 as one who is in the care of, or provided with accommodation by an English local authority.
Local authorities receive PPG for any pupils eligible for pupil premium in independent special schools where the authority pays full tuition fees.
In the case of funding based on LAC and eligible pupils in independent special schools, it is for the local authority to decide how much of that PPG funding to pass on to the child’s school.
The portion of PPG funding for LAC and PLAC pupils is referred to as ‘pupil premium plus’ (PP+).
Local authorities should pay PPG to schools due to convert to academy status as per the proportions set out in the PPG technical note.
If a school closes during the financial year, the local authority should allocate PPG for the proportion of the financial year the school is open. See further details in the technical note.
1.2 Providing support for children and young people with parents in the regular armed forces
This portion of PPG is referred to as service pupil premium (SPP). Funding is allocated to local authorities to distribute to each school they maintain, based on the number of pupils who meet the eligibility criteria – see service pupil premium guidance for further details.
2. Permitted use of the PPG
The PPG can be spent:
- for the benefit of pupils registered at the school that receives it
- for the benefit of pupils registered at other maintained schools or academies
- on community services whose provision furthers the benefit of pupils at the school.
The PPG must be spent to support eligible pupil cohorts as described in sections 2.1 to 2.5 Schools may wish to use a portion of PPG funding to support pupils who do not meet any of the PPG eligibility criteria but have other identified needs, where they deem it beneficial to do so.
2.1 Disadvantaged pupils
Schools must use PPG funding for the purpose of raising the educational attainment of PLAC, LAC and pupils who are eligible for FSM Ever 6.
In line with the 3-tiered approach in EEF’s pupil premium guide, activities must be those that:
- support the quality of teaching, such as staff professional development;
- provide targeted academic support, such as tutoring; and
- tackle non-academic barriers to academic success, such as attendance, behaviour and social and emotional support
To support schools to use PPG in line with the 3 tiers outlined above, DfE have published a ‘menu of approaches’, which has been informed by evidence of effective practice. Schools must use their PPG in line with this menu from the start of the 2022 to 2023 academic year. Schools are not required to allocate PPG to every approach on the menu, but any activity funded by PPG must fall under one of the approaches listed.
When diagnosing the targeted academic support needs of their disadvantaged pupils, schools should ensure they consider which pupils will benefit from tutoring, including through the National Tutoring Programme (NTP).
The menu of approaches is in the using pupil premium guidance.
2.2 Specific support for previously looked-after children (PLAC)
In order to achieve the purpose outlined in section 2.1 for PLAC, it is the responsibility of the school to ensure that their use of PPG addresses the specific needs of PLAC attending the school.
See the section on pupil premium plus in the using pupil premium guidance for further information.
2.3 Specific support for looked-after children (LAC)
In order to achieve the purpose outlined in section 2.1 for LAC, it is the responsibility of the Virtual School Head (VSH) in the local authority that looks after the child, in consultation with the child’s educational setting, to ensure that PPG is used to support those children’s educational needs in accordance with their personal education plans.
See the section on pupil premium plus in the using pupil premium guidance for further information.
The local authority can pool any amount of LAC PPG to fund activities that will benefit a group, or all, of the authority’s looked-after children. Any pupil premium held centrally must not be used to fund services that the local authority is responsible for funding, such as support for foster carers, school uniforms or transport to get the child to school.
For any funding that is passed on to the child’s education setting, processes for allocating the funds should be as simple as possible to avoid delay.
2.4 Eligible pupils in independent special schools
Local authorities may allocate PPG to independent special schools or spend the funding themselves on additional educational support to raise the attainment for the eligible pupils. Local authorities must consult the schools about how to use PPG to support eligible pupils.
2.5 Pupils eligible for SPP
The primary purpose of SPP is to enable schools to offer mainly pastoral support to eligible pupils during challenging times and to help mitigate the negative impact on service children of family mobility or parental deployment. It can also be used to help improve the academic progress of eligible pupils if schools deem this to be a priority.
See the section on SPP in the using pupil premium guidance for further information.
3. Use of evidence
Schools must be able to demonstrate how the activity they use their PPG to fund has been informed by research evidence, making reference to a range of sources, such as that published by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF).
Schools are required to cite this evidence in their pupil premium strategy statement – see section 4 for further information.
4. Accountability
To comply with school information regulations, maintained schools are required to publish an updated pupil premium strategy statement annually.
All schools must use the template available on the using pupil premium guidance page on GOV.UK to publish their 2022 to 2023 statement by the end of December 2022.
The template is designed to enable schools to present an overview of their pupil premium strategy, and to demonstrate that their use of the funding meets the requirements of these conditions of grant. For the purposes of the latter, the template requires schools to report on their use of pupil premium in line with the 3-tiered approach set out in section 2.1. As stated in section 2.1, all activity funded by the PPG must align with the published menu of approaches.
The Department for Education will undertake monitoring checks on a sample of schools’ published statements.
Given their role in ensuring schools spend funding appropriately and in holding schools to account for educational performance, governors should scrutinise schools’ statements, including their plans for use of their pupil premium funding and the outcomes achieved in the previous academic year. Schools are held accountable for the outcomes they achieve with all their funding, including through Ofsted inspections and by governors, and the PPG is no exception.
5. Allocation and payment arrangements
We will publish initial allocations in March 2022 for all schools that complete the October 2021 census. Allocations will be confirmed in June 2022, before the first payment. The June allocations will include PRUs, that complete the January 2022 census.
Allocations will include NRPF pupils once the data from schools’ claims for those pupils has been validated. We will pay PPG to local authorities in quarterly instalments by:
- 30 June 2022
- 30 September 2022
- 30 December 2022
- 31 March 2023
Local authorities must make the grant available to their schools irrespective of any deficit relating to the expenditure of the school’s budget share. PPG is not part of schools’ budget shares and is not part of the individual schools budget. It is not to be counted for the purpose of calculating the minimum funding guarantee.
6. Carrying PPG forward
Schools are not required to spend all of the PPG they receive in the financial year beginning 1 April 2022; some or all of it may be carried forward to future financial years. Any funding that is carried forward must be used in accordance with the conditions of grant for pupil premium for the financial year in which the funding is spent. It must be accounted for in the school’s pupil premium strategy statement for the academic year in which it is spent.
Local authorities must not carry forward funding held centrally into the financial year 2023 to 2024. Centrally-held LAC premium that has not been spent, or allocated to the child’s education setting by 31 March 2023, will be recovered.
7. Certification
Local authorities will be required to certify that they have passed on the correct amount of funding to schools or, where funding has been spent centrally, that it has been spent in line with these conditions of grant. We will issue a certification form in April 2023.
8. Variation
The basis for allocation of PPG may be varied by the Secretary of State from those set out above, if so requested by the school or local authority.
9. Other terms
If the local authority or a school fails to comply with the terms set out in the paragraphs above, the Secretary of State may withhold the whole or any part of subsequent instalments of PPG paid to the authority or school.
This will be notified in writing to the authority or school. Any such sum shall be withheld from subsequent instalments of the PPG.
10. Overpayments
Any overpayment of PPG shall be repaid by the school or local authority.
11. Further information
Books and other documents and records relating to the recipient’s accounts shall be open to inspection by the Secretary of State and by the Comptroller and Auditor General.
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 grant-aided activities.
Schools and local authorities shall provide information as may be required by the Secretary of State to determine whether it has complied with these conditions.
Failure to provide this information may result in the Secretary of State withholding subsequent instalments of the PPG.