PCNs have underspent on ARRS allocations by almost £20m in 2024/25, according to an investigation.
Data collected via freedom of information (FOI) requests by our sister title Pulse PCN found that there was £18.1m of unspent ARRS funding declared across 33 ICBs, which is around 1.58% of the total ARRS budget reported for those ICBs (£1.15bn).
All 42 ICBs responded to the FOI request, however four ICBs (Birmingham and Solihull, Hampshire and Isle of Wight, North West London and South East London) did not know their underspend figure when the FOI was sent on 9 April 2025.
An additional four ICBs (Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Devon, Herefordshire and Worcestershire and Mid and South Essex) used data based on claims so far, and said their data was therefore not complete.
One ICB (Lincolnshire) did not answer the question.
The total ARRS budget reported across all 42 ICBs was £1.5bn.
Of those who reported an underspend figure, six said they had used forecasts for the data, and one said they had not included the ARRS GP funding that was ringfenced (North East London).
GP roles were added to the ARRS scheme in October 2024, halfway through the financial year, with a ringfenced fund of £82m. The latest data has shown there are now more than 1,700 GPs hired through the scheme across England.
Some ICBs provided specific data on their GP ARRS funding. Derby and Derbyshire ICB said their budget for ARRS GPs was £1.5m, of which 46% (£689,370) remained unspent. Gloucestershire ICB also provided figures for this, with £13,934 of its £486k GP ARRS budget (2.9%) unspent.
Surrey Heartlands ICB also blamed the GP ARRS scheme for its £604k total ARRS underspend, which was 2% of their overall £26m budget, £1.4m of which was ringfenced for ARRS GPs, saying it ‘reflects the part year effect of recruiting into these new roles’.
Of the ICBs that did declare an underspend, Kent and Medway had the highest – £4.6m across its 43 PCNs, which is 9.41% of its total allocation (see table below).
This was followed by Greater Manchester ICB, with £3.2m unspent across 65 PCNs (3.8% of its total allocation); and North East London, with £2.3m unspent over its 48 PCNs (4.32% of its total allocation).
A further 18 ICBs said the full allocation had been spent or was forecast to be spent.
A spokesperson for NHS Kent and Medway said: ‘Making sure we have the right staff in place to support patients is a key priority for the NHS.
‘GP practices and primary care networks are free to decide which additional roles they need to recruit to best meet the needs of their patients. More than 1,000 people have joined primary care through this route, bolstering capacity and improving the range of clinical staff.’
A spokesperson from Greater Manchester ICB said: ‘The underspend was due in part to recruitment challenges, particularly for GPs, and restrictions that prevented unspent funds from being redistributed among PCNs.
‘Factors such as limited clinical space within buildings, workforce shortages, and uncertainties around GP funding contributed to an underspend. The GP role under ARRS was initially funded only until March 2025, and applicants had to be within two years of qualifying (post-CCT), which created challenges recruiting and retaining suitable candidates.’
A spokesperson for NHS North East London said: ‘More than half of PCNs (27 out of 48) in NEL used at least 98% of their allocation of ARRS funding. This number is expected to rise as a portal to processing claims from 2024/25 that still requiring further validation remains open.
‘NEL ICB will work [with] the PCNs that did not use their allocation to understand the reasons for this and support them in full recruitment. It also has policies and procedures in place to enable PCNs to flexibly recruit to PCN roles.’
However, it added, that most PCNs manage their financial risk by maintaining a small headroom against their ARRS budget of around 2-3%.
Of the ICBs that did not report complete data due to not all PCNs having submitted claims yet, Devon ICB confirmed that the most up to date figure on unspent ARRS money as of June 2025 was £635,934 against the PCN ARRS entitlement, which is around 2% of its £30.6m allocation. However it said they do still expect some late claims from PCNs.
Mid and South Essex, which reported £1,105,950 of underspend against its £28.3m budget (2.3%), said the spend did not account for outstanding claims and did not include GPs hired via the ARRS scheme. However, when asked whether it was able to redistribute the funds back to PCNs, it was the only ICB that said underspends would be ‘invested in primary care cost pressures’.
Other ICBs either reported this not applicable, or that the funds were retained by NHS England if not drawn down by ICBs.
Northamptonshire ICB said there was no underspend, however it said only £18,351,000 of its £19,990,000 ‘notional’ ARRS budget was spent, which would imply an underspend of £1,639,000.
It said: ‘NHS England only fund actual spend, so any forecast underspend against the notional budget would have resulted in a smaller allocation.’
Pulse PCN understands that a couple of ICBs spent the full amount they planned to spend, however this was not the maximum PCN entitlement as stipulated by the DES contract.
This includes Lincolnshire ICB, which did not declare an underspend. The ICB was given a total maximum ARRS fund of £20.82m, however the total spent was £19.704m, meaning an implied underspend against the maximum allocation was £1.116m.
The ICB response said: ‘We received a baseline allocation (budget) of £13.106m (63% of the above) and have been able to draw down from NHS England any spend above this up to our maximum available. Our total spend for this year is £19.704m so we have drawn down an additional £6.598m from NHS England to cover this.’
An ICB spokesperson added: ‘With regards to PCN ARRS, the ICB has an available pot of weighted list size times the rate for that year. [This results in], the £20.82m quoted [above].
‘The ICB receives a baseline allocation from NHS England of around 70% of the total available to them. We are then able to draw down additional allocation from NHSE up to our actual spend for that year (and not exceeding the available amount). [This results in], the £19.7m figure.
‘So, whilst the ICB underspent on its available ARRS allocation it did not underspend on the allocation it received from NHSE.’
South Yorkshire ICB also referenced that it had an ARRS allocation of £37m but only received £36m. Therefore, the ICB declared that it had an underspend of £701,000 against the notified allocation, but a £324,000 overspend against the allocation the ICB actually received from NHS England.
In May, primary care minister Stephen Kinnock revealed that the total ARRS underspend for 2023/24 was £88m.
This figure is almost double what was uncovered by an FOI investigation by Pulse PCN in June 2024, which found £45m of underspend across 20 ICBs.
Table: ARRS underspends in 33 ICBs that provided data under a FOI
| ICB | How many PCNs are in your ICB? | What was the maximum available ARRS allocation for the PCNs in your ICB in 2024/25? | How much of this funding remained unspent across the PCNs in your ICB footprint in 2024/25? | Unspent funding as a percentage of total ARRS allocation |
| Bath and North East Somerset | 28 | £22,477,000 | £500,000 | 2.2% |
| Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes | 25 | £23,586,000 | £0 | n/a |
| Black Country | 27 | £32,851,000 | £59,000* | 0.18% |
| Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire | 20 | £23,781,000 | £0 | n/a |
| Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West | 51 | £42,560,000 | £0 | n/a |
| Cheshire and Merseyside | 40 | £67,892,000 | £0 | n/a |
| Cornwall and Isles of Scilly | 15 | £15,684,303 | £0 | n/a |
| Coventry and Warwickshire | 19 | £26,382,000 | £0* | n/a |
| Derby and Derbyshire | 18 | £28,366,747 | £1,094,127 | 3.8% |
| Dorset | 18 | £19,221,000 | £0 | n/a |
| Frimley | 16 | £17,927,716 | £0 | n/a |
| Gloucestershire | 16 | £15,820,000 | £162,225 | 1.03% |
| Greater Manchester | 65 | £82,400,000 | £3,158,752 | 3.8% |
| Hertfordshire and West Essex | 35 | £33,916,000 | £0 | n/a |
| Humber and North Yorkshire | 43 | £43,035,000 | £0 | n/a |
| Kent and Medway | 43 | £48,941,000 | £4,606,000 | 9.4% |
| Lancashire and South Cumbria | 47 | £43,675,000 | £0 | n/a |
| Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland | 26 | £28,044,221 | £760,646 | 2.7% |
| Norfolk and Waveney | 20 | £25,978,022 | £0 | n/a |
| North Central London | 32 | £39,406,515 | £996,450 | 2.5% |
| North East and North Cumbria | 67 | £75,918,000 | £0 | n/a |
| North East London | 48 | £53,200,000 | £2,300,000** | 4.3% |
| Northamptonshire | 16 | £19,990,000 | £0* | n/a |
| Nottingham and Nottinghamshire | 24 | £29,654,000 | £5,000 | 0.02% |
| Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin | 9 | £12,755,000 | £0 | n/a |
| Somerset | 13 | £14,207,000 | £773,000 | 5.4% |
| South West London | 38 | £36,825,000 | £0* | n/a |
| South Yorkshire | 29 | £37,052,000 | £701,000 | 1.9% |
| Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent | 25 | £28,193,000 | £700,000* | 2.48% |
| Suffolk and North East Essex | 23 | £26,440,000 | £1,690,000 | 6.39% |
| Surrey Heartlands | 26 | £26,070,000 | £604,000 | 2.3% |
| Sussex | 40 | £45,468,000 | £0* | n/a |
| West Yorkshire | 52 | £62,086,000 | £0 | n/a |
| Total | £1,149,802,524 | £18,110,200 |
*Based on forecasts **Not including GP ARRS funding
Source: Pulse PCN
A version of this article was first published by our sister title Pulse PCN
