These are the key findings from the second of three rounds of the DCMS Coronavirus Business Survey. These surveys are being conducted to help DCMS understand how our sectors are responding to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic. The data collected is not longitudinal as responses are voluntary, meaning that businesses have no obligation to complete multiple rounds of the survey and businesses that did not submit a response to one round are not excluded from response collection in following rounds.

The indicators and analysis presented in this bulletin are based on responses from the voluntary business survey, which captures organisations responses on how their turnover, costs, workforce and resilience have been affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. The results presented in this release are based on 3,870 completed responses collected between 17 August and 8 September 2020.

1. Experimental Statistics

This is the first time we have published these results as Official Statistics. An earlier round of the business survey can be found on gov.uk.

We have designated these as Experimental Statistics, which are newly developed or innovative statistics. These are published so that users and stakeholders can be involved in the assessment of their suitability and quality at an early stage.

We expect to publish a third round of the survey before the end of the financial year. To inform that release, we would welcome any user feedback on the presentation of these results to evidence@dcms.gov.uk by the end of November 2020.

2. Data sources

The survey was run simultaneously through DCMS stakeholder engagement channels and via a YouGov panel.

The two sets of results have been merged to create one final dataset.

Invitations to submit a response to the survey were circulated to businesses in relevant sectors through DCMS stakeholder engagement channels, prompting 2,579 responses.

YouGov’s business omnibus panel elicited a further 1,288 responses. YouGov’s respondents are part of their panel of over one million adults in the UK. A series of pre-screened information on these panellists allows YouGov to target senior decision-makers of organisations in DCMS sectors.

3. Quality

One purpose of the survey is to highlight the characteristics of organisations in DCMS sectors whose viability is under threat in order to shape further government support. The timeliness of these results is essential, and there are some limitations, arising from the need for this timely information:

• Estimates from the DCMS Coronavirus (COVID-19) Impact Business Survey are currently unweighted (i.e., each business was assigned the same weight regardless of turnover, size or industry) and should be treated with caution when used to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 across the UK economy.
• Survey responses through DCMS stakeholder comms are likely to contain an element of self-selection bias as those businesses that are more severely negatively affected have a greater incentive to report their experience.
• Due to time constraints, we are yet to undertake any statistical significance testing or provided confidence intervals

The UK Statistics Authority

This release is published in accordance with the Code of Practice for Statistics, as produced by the UK Statistics Authority. The Authority has the overall objective of promoting and safeguarding the production and publication of official statistics that serve the public good. It monitors and reports on all official statistics, and promotes good practice in this area.

The responsible statistician for this release is Alex Bjorkegren. For further details about the estimates, or to be added to a distribution list for future updates, please email us at evidence@dcms.gov.uk.

Pre-release access

The document above contains a list of ministers and officials who have received privileged early access to this release. In line with best practice, the list has been kept to a minimum and those given access for briefing purposes had a maximum of 24 hours.

This page outlines payments made to institutions for claims they have made to ESFA for various grants. These include, but are not exclusively, COVID-19 support grants. Information on funding for grants based on allocations will be on the specific page for the grant.

Claim-based grants included

Senior mental health lead training

Financial assistance towards the cost of training a senior member of school or college staff in mental health and wellbeing in the 2021 to 2022, 2022 to 2023 and 2023 to 2024 financial years. The information provided is for payments up to the end of October 2024.

COVID-19 16 to 19 tuition fund 2020 to 2021 and 2021 to 2022

Funding for eligible 16 to 19 institutions to deliver small group and/or one-to-one tuition for disadvantaged students and those with low prior attainment to help support education recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Due to continued pandemic disruption during academic year 2020 to 2021 some institutions carried over funding from academic year 2020 to 2021 to 2021 to 2022.

Therefore, any considerations of spend or spend against funding allocations should be considered across both years.

School funding: exceptional costs associated with coronavirus (COVID-19)

Financial assistance available to schools to cover increased premises, free school meals and additional cleaning-related costs associated with keeping schools open over the Easter and summer holidays in 2020, during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) free school meals: additional costs

Financial assistance available to meet the additional cost of the provision of free school meals to pupils and students where they were at home during term time, for the period January 2021 to March 2021.

Alternative provision: year 11 transition funding

Financial assistance for alternative provision settings to provide additional transition support into post-16 destinations for year 11 pupils from June 2020 until the end of the autumn term (December 2020). This has now been updated to include funding for support provided by alternative provision settings from May 2021 to the end of February 2022.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) 2021 qualifications fund for schools and colleges

Financial assistance for schools, colleges and other exam centres to run exams and assessments during the period October 2020 to March 2021 (or for functional skills qualifications, October 2020 to December 2020). Now updated to include claims for eligible costs under the 2021 qualifications fund for the period October 2021 to March 2022.

National tutoring programme: academic mentors programme grant

Financial assistance for mentors’ salary costs on the academic mentors programme, from the start of their training until 31 July 2021, with

Between March 2020 and the end of the summer term, early years settings, schools and colleges were asked to limit attendance to reduce transmission of coronavirus (COVID-19). From the beginning of the autumn term schools were asked to welcome back all pupils to school full-time. From 5 January 2021, schools were asked to provide on-site education for vulnerable children and children of critical workers only.

The data on explore education statistics shows attendance in education settings since Monday 23 March 2020, and in early years settings since Thursday 16 April 2020. The summary explains the responses for a set time frame.

The data is collected from a daily education settings status form and a weekly local authority early years survey.

Previously published data and summaries are available at attendance in education and early years settings during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.

The data in these documents reflects the NHS Test and Trace operation in England since its launch on 28 May 2020.

This includes 2 weekly reports:

1. NHS Test and Trace statistics:

• people tested for coronavirus (COVID-19)
• people testing positive for COVID-19
• time taken for test results to become available
• people transferred to the contact tracing system and the time taken for them to be reached
• close contacts identified for cases managed and not managed by local health protection teams (HPTs), and time taken for them to be reached

2. Rapid asymptomatic testing statistics: number of lateral flow device (LFD) tests reported by test result.

There are 3 sets of data tables accompanying the reports.

This release looks at the impact of COVID-19 on passenger arrival numbers in the United Kingdom, highlighting key trends up to the end of June 2022.