School uniform grant increased to £100

The local Citizens Advice Bureau isn’t just your first stop for advice and information on your legal and financial problems. Hackney CAB also campaigns on issues that are affecting local residents. The social policy team of volunteers – Selina Rodrigues and Mathew James – monitor what type of problems are brought to the bureau and these are collated for both local and national campaigns.

One of the recent campaigns we worked on looked at the costs associated with attending school.

We found that many local parents who used the bureau were facing difficulties with the escalating costs of schools, with uniforms, PE kits and school trips all adding up.

Many parents would pay an average of £200 to kit their child out in the full school uniform required by some secondary schools.

Several of the new academies have introduced distinctive new colours and styles in their uniforms and while this creates a sense of shared identity within the school, the costs could spiral. Selina started to survey parents who came into the bureau and also wrote to all the local schools in Hackney to find out about their uniform suppliers and costs.

We were shocked at the high cost of uniforms in the borough. We then attended the local Admissions Forum, a meeting of schools representatives and others concerned with schools in the borough, to present our findings and to explain what we thought might help – an increase in the school uniform grant. The Forum was very interested to hear about how the costs were affecting local parents, and agreed to increase the level of the grant from £60 to £100 per child.

We have also kept in touch with local schools, encouraging them to hold secondhand uniform sales and the use of generic items. School uniform grants are made available at the discretion of local authorities around the country to parents on low incomes.

The rules for applying for the grant differ from one borough to another, and in some councils there is no grant at all. On a national level, the Citizens Advice Adding Up campaign raises awareness of the issue of school costs.

A fellow CAB in Rossendale managed to convince Lancashire County Council to introduce a school uniform grant where none was previously available, with the gentle persuasion of a local parent teaming up with the CAB and initiating a judicial review on the issue.

If you are experiencing difficulties with paying for school uniforms, the school clothing grant is available to pupils transferring from primary to secondary school at age 11.

Details of how to qualify for the grant and income criteria are available at the Learning Trust website – www.learningtrust.co.uk.

If you don’t qualify for the grant, there are also a number of organisations and charitable trusts which provide one-off grants. You can get advice and help on applying at Hackney CAB and there is also an online search facility for grants at www.turn2us.org.uk.