Pupil Equity Funding: national operational guidance 2026-2027

Key Principles

• Headteachers will have access to their school’s full allocated amount of Pupil Equity Funding and should work in partnership with each other, and their local authority, to agree the use of funding. Local authorities should not arbitrarily ‘top slice’ Pupil Equity Funding, however, additional corporate costs are inevitable. They should be reasonable, proportionate, and taken in consultation, and agreement of, headteachers. Although costs may have been in place for some time, to ensure transparency, a clear and updated communication with headteachers should helpfully set out the benefits such approaches have.
• This guidance should be considered alongside the Scottish Attainment Challenge Framework for Recovery and Accelerating Progress and The Scottish Attainment Challenge Logic Model.
• Pupil Equity Funding must enable schools to deliver activities, approaches or resources which are clearly additional to universal local improvement plans.
• Teachers, parents and carers, children and young people and other key stakeholders should be meaningfully involved throughout the processes of planning, implementing and evaluating approaches. This should be inclusive of all children and families affected by poverty, including those where alternative communication methods need tobe considered.
• 5,394 children and young people took part in the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland‘Big Question’ survey around costs of the school day, sharing their thoughts on school trips, food, what helps them feel ready to learn and their ideas about what should change. Local Authorities and Headteachers may wish to consider these findings when engaging with their own pupils.
• Schools should be able to access ongoing advice and guidance from the Education Scotland team to maximise improved outcomes for children and young people as a result of Pupil Equity Funding. Education Scotland can be integral to facilitating good communication between headteachers, helping to share best practice and providing guidance on effective planning, implementation and evaluation of interventions in schools and local authorities.
• Funding must provide targeted support for children and young people (and their families if appropriate) affected by poverty to achieve their full potential, focusing on targeted improvement activity in literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing.
• Although Pupil Equity Funding is allocated on the basis of free school meal registration, headteachers can use their professional judgement to identify children in their school who may benefit from the targeted interventions and approaches, with the aim of closing the poverty-related attainment gap.
• Headteachers are empowered to use PEF for interventions, including the option to contribute to, or cover, costs such as school trips, residential trips, theatre trips and outdoor learning experiences in order make access to such learning opportunities as equitable as possible.
• Schools must take account of the statutory responsibilities of the authority to deliver educational improvement, secure best value, and the authority’s role as employer. Local Guidance will set out more detail on how this will operate. The contributions of wider services supporting children and young people and their families are vital to supporting pupils’ readiness to learn. Collaboration across services is crucial in tackling the poverty-related attainment gap.
• The operation of Pupil Equity Funding should be included within existing planning procedures e.g. through School Improvement Plans and Standards and Quality reports, or equivalent report if appropriate, each of which should be easily accessible to stakeholders. This must provide clarity to stakeholders on how Pupil Equity Funding is being used and its expected impact.
• Headteachers must develop a clear rationale for use of the funding, based on a robust contextual analysis of relevant data which identifies the poverty-related attainment gap in their schools and learning communities and plans must be grounded in evidence of what is known to be effective at raising attainment and achievement and widening opportunities for children affected by poverty.
• Schools must have plans in place at the outset to evaluate the impact of the funding. These plans should outline clear outcomes to be achieved and how progress towards these, and the impact on closing the poverty-related attainment gap, will be measured. If, as a result of this ongoing monitoring, the plans are not achieving the results intended, these plans should be amended. Plans for sustainability must be considered as part of this.