Ministers face having to hand back more than £100 million of unspent tutoring funding to the Treasury after schools struggled to access the flagship scheme, Schools Week has learned.
Huge problems with the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) led to low take-up of its tuition partners and academic mentors arms last year. Most leaders opted instead to make use of direct school-led tutoring funding.
Schools Week understands this has resulted in an underspend of at least a sixth of the total budget for 2021-22, which will now automatically be clawed back by the Treasury.
Former schools minister Jonathan Gullis said he tried to get the underspend worked into the budget for future years to avoid the clawback.
This could have increased government subsidies next year and made the scheme more “economically viable for headteachers”, he claimed.
