The Foreign Office has spent more than £13m sending the children of diplomats to top private schools in Britain such as Eton and Winchester College
The government spend for the fees equates to an increase of nearly a third in a single year. And the figures suggest the average cost of subsidising private education for each child has reached its highest point in recent history.
The expenditure has added to concerns about the use of taxpayers’ money during the cost of living crisis.
The revelations came in parliamentary answers provided by the Foreign Office about the budget for the Continuity of Education Allowance (CEA). Under a longstanding perk for diplomats, senior Foreign Office staff can have their children’s boarding school fees paid for by the taxpayer.
The scheme is designed to give diplomats the freedom to travel abroad at short notice, or take long-term postings in high-risk countries. There is a maximum ceiling, which contains costs. However, spending on the CEA has still risen considerably and many private schools have increased their fees.
About £13.7m was spent subsidising the cost of private school fees in the 2022/23 financial year, according to the Foreign Office minister David Rutley. The previous year, the figure was £10.5m, equating to an annual rise of 31%. In 2020/21, the cost was £12m.
The recent increase suggests total spending on the CEA is returning to pre-pandemic levels. However, the cost for each child appears to be the highest in recent history, according to figures for previous years revealed in other parliamentary answers.
A total of 514 pupils of various ages had their school fees covered by the department last year, at an average cost of £26,848. That is a rise of 35% from 2021/22, when 531 children had their fees subsidised at an average cost of £19,849.
The most popular choice of school for Foreign Office staff remains Sevenoaks school, in Kent, which received £721,965 in fees from the taxpayer in 2022/23, up from £629,073 in 2021/22. Foreign Office spending on places at the highly selective mixed school has risen by 60% since 2016/17.
Second most popular among the diplomatic corps is Oundle school, in Northamptonshire, where Foreign Office payments rose from £381,851 in 2021/22 to £487,449 in 2022/23.
Last year’s prime ministerial power shift, from Boris Johnson to Rishi Sunak, was mirrored by the Foreign Office’s spending on fees at their former schools. Payments to Eton College fell from £371,827 in 2021/22 to £246,720 in 2022/23, while payments to Winchester College rose from £106,326 to £143,232.
Payments to Charterhouse School – where the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, was educated – also rose, from £132,264 in 2021/22 to £171,760 in 2022/23.
In addition to its subsidies for UK boarding schools, the Foreign Office also pays the school fees for diplomats who take their children with them on long-term postings overseas. In 2022/23, the cost of overseas school fees was £24.14m, up from £21.38m the previous year and well over double the £11.78m spent in 2014/15.
John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said “hard-pressed taxpayers will not take kindly to these figures”.
He added: “While diplomats often have to move at a moment’s notice the scale of these subsidies is difficult to justify, particularly during a cost of living crisis. Diplomats should expect to send their children to one of our brilliant state schools, like everybody else does, or pay private school fees themselves.”
An FCDO spokesperson said: “Our staff are often asked to move frequently during their career, sometimes at very short notice, which is why it has been the policy of successive governments to support eligible families so that their children’s education is disrupted as little as possible.
“There are clear caps on compensation offered to staff. The increase in our spending reflects the inclusion of legacy DfID staff and legacy FCO staff in a single FCDO figure from this year, and a rise in boarding school fees.”
