A new program to sign families up for free school lunches has resulted in 20,000 more children being fed.
And by preventing children from going hungry, the pilot scheme “auto-enroll” is saving families hundreds of pounds a year.
A total of local authorities in 20 of England This year he decided to identify the students who would qualify and sign them without any expectation of their parents to do so. It is now understood another 40 local authorities are considering self-registration, according to the University of York, which is leading the initiative.
The plan is also generating millions of pounds in money for extra-curricular schools – which it awards to auditors, aimed at serving schools to help pupils against disadvantage – combined with a number of free lunches for children in schools, providing £1,455 per primary pupil and £1,035 per secondary pupil.
For years, children from some of the poorest families across the country have been missing because their parents or carers were not registered for them.
Peter Lamb, Labor MP for Crawley, introduced a private member’s bill, which was due for its second reading in March, in the hope of creating a national system in which qualifying families would voluntarily register if parents had to opt-in. -out rather than opt-in.
“We know that at least 10% of families who qualify for free school meals do not qualify for it,” Prof Mary Bryant, from the research group FixOurFood and Hull York Medical School at York University, said.
The councils involved in the scheme now include County Durham and Middlesbrough in the north-east; Lamheth, south of London; North Yorkshire; and Wakefield in the West.
Eligibility for free school lunches is at a record high of 2.1 million – nearly a quarter of all students. Children are eligible if their parents or carers receive benefits or universal credit and their family income after tax is below £7,400, but most families are not registered – to 470,000 by one estimate.
When identifying eligible students is a process that requires extensive analysis, FixOurFood encourages the government to facilitate the process by integrating statements from different departments.
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“I really hope that our evidence supports the decision to make a national decision so that a central process can be used, instead of burdening the already busy local authorities to collect the work”, Prof. Bryant added.
All children in Wales receive free school meals, while in Scotland it is provided for children up to P5 (ages nine and 10). However, in England, school meals for all children only extend to year 2 (ages five to six). Northern Ireland has a higher income threshold than England for eligibility, which is £15,000 a year after tax.
The government has pledged to triple investment in lunch clubs to more than £30m a year in the 2025-26 financial year. Last month, it began inviting schools to be part of an “early adopter drive,” in which up to 750 schools will be funded to set up free breakfast clubs, a “free, universal” meal from April 2025.