Councils have had concerns about the inflexible funding rules of the prime minister’s flagship maths programme after new figures revealed that a third of the money allocated in its first year went unspent. Multiply, Rishi Sunak’s adult maths education programme, committed to provide £559 million across three financial years to the end of 2024-25 from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. But, in its first year of delivery, £30.3 million of the £81 million awarded was returned to the Treasury, according to data obtained by local government. Councils that returned the largest proportion of their funding said this was down to the terms and conditions of the funding: money was handed out over halfway through the 2022-23 financial year and councils were not allowed to roll over any that was unused. Click here for more.
