Education Maintenance Allowances 2021-22

4. EMA payments

Total cost

The total spend on EMA in 2021-22 was £18.6 million, which is a reduction of approximately 19% on year 2020-21 (£22.1 million). Of this, £13.9 million was spent on school recipients, which constitutes 75% of total payments; £4 million on college recipients (22% of total payments) and £0.6 million on Learning Agreements (3% of total payments).

Average payment per person, institution type

The average payment per EMA recipient was £777 in 2021-22. This is a reduction of around 12% from year 2020-21 (£882). It is broadly in line with average payment levels in 2018-19 (£786), before the COVID pandemic.

Amongst EMA recipients, school students received on average £818 over the academic year; college students received £690 and those on Learning Agreements received £579. The difference is mainly due to the number of weeks in which each type is eligible to receive the benefit.

Average payment per person, by deprivation

Students from the most deprived areas are more likely to receive EMA: 9,310 recipients from Quintile 1 (the most deprived) versus 1,690 recipients from Quintile 5 (the least deprived) in 2021-22. This pattern is observed across institutions, as there was 6,455 recipients from Quintile 1 and 1,415 from Quintile 5 in schools. While there was 2,420 recipients from Quintile 1 and 250 from Quintile 5 in college.

However, EMA recipients from the most deprived areas receive on average a smaller amount (£761 for Quintile 1 versus £819 for Quintile 5). Again, this pattern is observed when looking at both schools and colleges. Analysis of the 2021-22 school data show that on average, school recipients from the least deprived areas received a higher number of payments throughout the academic year than those in the most deprived areas.