School uniforms: the cost to Cumbrian families

What does school uniform cost?

When the News and Star asked Cumbrian parents about school uniforms on September 2nd last year, Karen Carr answered with her bill:

“£36 per jumper then the shorts or skort and the leggings and the socks is more than £100 each and that’s before you even add the blazer jumper and ties. (…) It’s an utter joke.”¹

Another parent, Mary Orr, told the paper that “secondary school uniforms are ridiculous” and that “there’s nothing wrong with polo shirts and cardigans”.¹

Uniforms aren’t the only annually recurring expense Cumbrian parents are expected to pay: a family in Westmorland and Furness is charged £867.03 for a child’s school bus seat for 2026/27, which is 15% more expensive than the previous year.²

Child poverty after housing costs stands at 24.4% in the Carlisle area and 20.0% in Penrith and Solway.³ It’s safe to say that a sizable portion of Cumbrian families faces significant difficulty keeping up with these costs each time the back-to-school season rolls around.

What help is there?

Less than in the rest of the UK, and harder to find out about.

England is the only nation in the UK without a national school uniform grant. Wales pays £125 per child, or £200 for a child starting secondary school. Scotland sets a minimum of £120 for primary and £150 for secondary. Northern Ireland also pays fixed sums by school stage and age.⁴ In England the law says a council “may” provide clothing where a child’s clothing is inadequate. The Scottish version of the same law says the council “shall”.⁵

Cumberland Council and Westmorland and Furness Council each offer a school clothing grant, applied for on the same form as free school meals.⁶ Neither council says on that page what the grant is worth. The last figures published for Cumbria were £50 for a primary child and £100 for a secondary child, set by the old county council in June 2022.⁷ When MoneySavingExpert went through every English council’s website this month, it reported Cumberland’s grant as £100 and Westmorland and Furness’s as £75.⁸ Since those numbers come from a consumer website, it’s best to treat them as an estimate until the councils publish their own.

So the position for a Cumbrian family is this: there is a grant, but you have to know it exists, apply for it, prove you qualify, and you will not be told in advance how much you’ll receive.

Why does asking for help feel so hard?

We’ve spent a lot of time reading what parents say online about uniform costs on UK parenting and money forums. One pattern stood out: the most emotional posts often describe having to call the school to say you couldn’t afford something your child needs, and then being asked to fill out a form to prove it. Almost nobody wrote with the same emotion about their child wearing a jumper somebody else wore first.

Charities that run uniform schemes are seeing the same thing. “There’s been a lot more demand, I’ve had messages, phone calls asking for uniform,” said Hannah Smith, who manages a Barnardo’s shop in Somerset.⁹

What does Restore do?

All Restore shops give school uniform away for free: Castle Street, Petteril Bank and Morton in Carlisle, and Brewery Lane in Penrith.

The rails go out in front of the shops for the back-to-school weeks in late August and September. This year Penrith’s rail states Restore’s entire policy on school uniforms: “All school uniforms are FREE. Please help yourself.”

There is no form and no referral. Nobody checks whether you qualify, because there is nothing to qualify for. If you can’t see the rail, please ask in the shop. We usually have more in the back, and we’re more than happy to help.

Everything on the rails was dropped off by local people whose children had grown out of it. Volunteers sort it by size, wash what needs washing, and put it out.

Our shop staff hear the same thing most days, in one form or another: “What a grand idea; uniform costs a fortune these days.” They hear it from people who leave with a bag of uniform and from people who do not need one. At all four shops, customers often reach for their purse or wallet before we reassure them that the uniform is free.

A review of 37 studies of food charity across twelve countries found that what most reliably takes the shame out of receiving help is being allowed to give something back.¹⁰ A pound in the tin makes it an exchange rather than a handout. If that’s you, and you’d rather leave something, you’re very welcome to. But you do not need to feel any shame at all for being one of the many, many families across Cumbria who don’t have the money spare right now.

Should a charity be doing this at all?

Some people think not, and the best version of that argument came from Lee Pitcher while speaking in the House of Commons in November 2024. He praised the volunteers at a pre-loved uniform bank in his constituency and then asked: “Does the hon. Member agree that although their work is amazing, we do not want to see those banks grow on our high streets or even exist in the first place?”¹¹

We agree that a charity shop giving away school jumpers means something further up the line is not working. But children start school in September whether that gets fixed or not.

Where to go

The uniform is free at all our shops, no questions asked. If your children have grown out of theirs, please feel welcome to drop it off at any of the shops. Clean and wearable, for any school.