Catch-up cash allocated to schools will go “unspent” and have to be returned to the Treasury unless the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) rules are changed so schools no longer have to subsidise sessions from their own budgets, a union leader has told schools minister Nick Gibb today.

In a letter sent this morning and seen by Tes, Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said that many schools “simply cannot afford” to cover 40 per cent of the cost of tutoring sessions, as they are required to do at the moment.

And he warned that relaxing subsidy rules would “remove a significant barrier” to the scheme’s effectiveness.

Currently, government NTP funding can be used to pay for 60 per cent of the total cost incurred by a school to deliver catch-up tutoring.

Mainstream schools are subject to a maximum hourly per-pupil rate of £18 - meaning they can claim £10.80 from the Department for Education - and non-mainstream £47, enabling them to claim back £28.20.

But the ASCL has formally proposed today that schools be allowed to use their full allocation - still ring-fenced for tutoring - but without having to top up the remaining 40 per cent.

In his letter, Mr Barton argues that this “would not cost the government any additional money, but rather would mean that more public money would be spent in the way it was intended”.

“We fear that the alternative is that a significant proportion of this funding, for which your Department fought hard, will remain unspent and need to be returned to the Treasury”, he adds.

And he says that the proposal “has the potential to significantly increase the uptake of the NTP”.

• Background: Miss tutoring form deadline and we’ll reclaim cash, DfE tells heads
• NTP: Catch-up tutors run lessons for ‘ghost pupils’
• Related: Randstad says schools lack ‘bandwidth’ to sign-up to NTP

Mr Barton’s letter follows informal suggestions that the DfE changes subsidy rules from across the sector.

Speaking to Tes at a tutoring conference last week, John Nichols, president of The Tutoring Association, said: “Schools obviously face a number of budgetary pressures, and because the NTP subsidy has dropped quite significantly since last year, there are very real fears that schools simply cannot afford to use their budget fully and tutoring will drop off their radar.”

Last year, schools using the school-led tutoring grant could claim the cost of 75 per cent of tuition from the DfE. This then dropped to 60 per cent this year and will fall further to 25 per cent next academic year - so schools would only be able to claim back £4.50 for a tutoring session.

And this comes at a time when schools are facing a range of financial pressures, including rising energy bills and higher staffing costs.

Last month, leaders wrote to Conservative MPs and warned of a £2 billion funding shortfall.

The NTP - the government’s flagship catch-up scheme designed to help pupils recover lost learning caused by the Covid pandemic - has undergone a transformation this year, after the DfE announced in March that £349 million of tutoring cash would go directly to schools.

This was in a bid to “simplify” the system after the DfE finally decided to end its contract with Dutch recruitment firm Randstad, which had struggled to meet targets.

Schools that received school-led funding last academic year had to fill out a statement in September outlining their spending, with those that missed the deadline risking having the money clawed back from them.

DfE had threatened to take back cash from schools that missed the deadline for the year-end tutoring statement, but has now extended that deadline.

In a warning published with the guidance during the summer, the DfE said: “If your school does not submit the year-end statement, we will understand that as admission that you have not carried out any SLT and we will recover your full allocation as an overpayment.”

A DfE spokesperson said: “Over two million tutoring courses have been started through the National Tutoring Programme since it began, including almost 1.8 million across 80 per cent of schools last year.

“We are clear that 100 per cent of schools should be delivering the National Tutoring Programme, as government works with schools to help children catch up from lost learning in the pandemic.

“We have provided schools with over £1 billion to help them to embed tutoring into the school day and settings can also use Pupil Premium funding to support pupils on the programme.”

The full letter from Mr Barton to Nick Gibb can be seen below: