Extra funding for disadvantaged pupils

Plans to give disadvantaged children extra funding to help with their education from next September have been unveiled by the Government.

Sarah Teather, Children's minister, said that extra cash to fund the programme will be found from "outside the schools budget".

In addition, she revealed that the plan to pay schools a "pupil premium" for every disadvantaged pupil they take in was one of the stumbling blocks in negotiations with Labour over a potential coalition after the election.

"They simply refused to agree to it," she said. "I find this shocking – a policy designed to support the most vulnerable in our society and give them the chances that other children have – rejected by the Labour Party.

"If any of us ever needed another example of Labour's complete failure to represent the most poor, and the emptiness of their rhetoric, this was it."

The "pupil premium" was the centrepiece of the Liberal Democrats' election manifesto. Their package was costed at £2.5bn a year and was their only commitment on extra spending for education.

The size of the premium will not be known until after the comprehensive spending review in October, although Ms Teather moved to soothe headteachers' fears that some schools could lose out on funding to pay for it. It will, she stressed, come from outside the schools' budget – leaving open the possibility that it will be financed by extra cuts in bureaucracy or to education quangos.

This was a key concession made by the Conservatives during their negotiations over setting up the coalition.

Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, said ministers were consulting over who would be eligible for the extra funding. It could be children on free school meals or those in families entitled to out-of-work credits. Children in care and those from armed service families would warrant extra payments. The premium will be a "significant" amount.