By Helen Mooney | 19 August 2014
The government's flagship free school meals policy faces significant underfunding after it has emerged that nearly half of all local authorities do not have enough money to bring their school kitchens up to scratch.
A report by the Local Government Association found that councils and schools have been forced to divert money from other budgets to try and ensure the government’s promise of a free school meal for all pupils aged seven and under can be delivered when the new school year begins next month.
The research has found that 47% of councils did not receive enough cash from government for the scheme in time for the start of the 2014/15 school year.
The LGA estimates councils without enough money have had to find an average of £488,000 each to ensure all pupils will get the meals they will be entitled to.
Councils were given £150m from central government to fund essential capital work – such as building new kitchens – for schools to provide free meals to all infant-age pupils from September.
However, despite government promises that the policy would be fully funded, the LGA said it was clear schools and councils have had to find money from elsewhere to make free school meals a reality within the timescale.
This could lead to unintended consequences on school maintenance budgets, the chair of the LGA’s children and young people board David Simmonds said.
‘It cannot be right that for some councils, money set aside for maintenance has instead had to be spent plugging the shortfall in money which government should have provided for meals,’ he added.
However, a Department for Education spokeswoman said the government had already provided ‘significant financial support to schools to help them deliver the policy, including over £1bn over the next two years to pay for the costs of providing the meals’.
She added: ‘Based on evidence collected from councils and schools themselves, we believe that all schools are on track to deliver free school meals in September. We are continuing to monitor school preparations taking place over the summer holidays and have a free support service in place to help deal with any issues that arise.’
