All £349 million for the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) will go directly to schools from the next academic year, the government has announced.
The Department for Education said the move would “simplify” the system, designed to help pupils catch up on learning lost during the pandemic, and build on the “success” of tutoring delivered by schools this year.
As a result of the changes, the DfE will be launching a bid to find a new supplier in April to deliver the academic mentors part of the NTP and offer “quality assurance and training”, which it says will “support schools to make best use of their funding”.
The DfE hired Dutch firm Randstad to deliver the NTP this year - but the provider has come under consistent fire since the early days of its contract, with tuition partners complaining that its online booking platform is bureaucratic and “dysfunctional” to use.
Currently, the NTP has three different strands - school-led, academic mentors and tuition partners. The DfE said this morning that schools would still be able to work with partners next year, as well as recruit and employ academic mentors, but would get the funds for this directly.
The government announced £1 billion for catch-up efforts last summer, with £579 million allocated to school-led tutoring and £218 million funding the NTP delivery by Randstad.
Last month, education secretary Nadhim Zahawi announced that it would shift £65 million catch-up cash to the school-led tuition route of the programme.
The DfE has now said £349 million will be allocated to schools to run catch-up tutoring during the 2022-23 academic year.
The move has been broadly supported by school sector leaders, with Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), and Robert Halfon, chair of the Commons Education Select Committee, among those welcoming the announcement.
New estimates, published by the DfE alongside the announcement this morning, show that 887,521 tuition courses have started so far this academic year - with more than three-quarters (674,941) having been delivered through the school-led route. It added that 1,198,239 have been run in total since the programme began. The number of course completions is not published by the DfE.
Randstad delivery has been ‘alarming’
Mr Barton said he welcomed the move and added: “We have argued since the outset of the programme that this is what should happen and that the way it has been structured through various funding streams and providers is overly and unnecessarily complicated for something that should really be very simple.
“We await further details about exactly how this scheme will work next academic year.”
Mr Halfon said Randstad’s delivery of the NTP had been “alarming”, and said: “I strongly welcome the measures announced by the government today that will remove Randstad as the delivery partner, and that will direct the tutoring funding directly to schools to organise their own provision under the school-led pillar of the catch-up programme.”
The chair of the Commons Education Select Committee has put increasing pressure on the DfE to justify continuing the contract with the Dutch firm and to give the cash directly to schools after an inquiry by the committee uncovered a “spaghetti junction” of funding for the programme.
In a statement this morning, Randstad said it had been lobbying the DfE for some time to “simplify” the rules around accessing the programme.
The organisation’s NTP director Karen Guthrie said the firm supported a “fair and transparent procurement process” and appreciated that a “material change in programme scope requires a new procurement exercise as is right and proper in the protection of public funds”.
Labour’s shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson tweeted that the NTP had “failed” and added: “It’s welcome they are now changing tack. But it’s too little, too late, for too many kids.”
Flexibility to use NTP funding until August
Under changes announced this morning, schools will also be given the flexibility to deliver tuition over the summer holidays.
The DfE has extended the period under which schools can use school-led tutoring funding until 31 August.
The government said this followed research showing positive feedback from schools that had run summer school catch-up programmes last summer.
The DfE said almost 2,800 English schools took part in its summer schools programme last year, with over half of schools (53 per cent) surveyed, as part of the research, indicating that they believed summer schools were “extremely effective” at improving pupil wellbeing.
The programme was mainly focused on transition for students starting Year 7 in secondary schools.
How will the funding work?
Currently, money for the NTP comes via different channels. For school-led tutoring, funding is paid in three instalments directly to schools.
For the tuition partners strand, a school will claim the subsidy from the tuition partner, and for academic mentors, the school will employ the mentor and then claim the money back from DfE.
From September 2022, the money will go directly to schools, as it does currently via the schools-led tutoring route.
NTP has come under fire for months
Randstad and the NTP have come under fire from politicians and school leaders for months.
Earlier this year, Tes revealed that NTP tutors were running sessions for “ghost pupils” who didn’t turn up because of confusion over targets.
This month, the DfE was accused of “moving the goalposts” after “confused guidance” over revised targets for the programme were sent to school leaders.
Robert Halfon previously called on the government to “seriously consider” breaking its contract with Randstad over fears it was “not reaching the most vulnerable children in our communities”.
