History
The development of the school meal service from in the post-war
years created a platform from which nutritional poverty affecting
children could be tackled in a systematic way. Legislation in recent
years has significantly altered this by:
- restricting entitlement to free school meals to families on
income support and income-based jobseekers allowance; and
- abolishing minimum nutritional standards and price controls.
Diet, child poverty, education and
health
Currently, children’s diets are generally too high in sugar and
fat and too low in fibre, some vitamins and minerals. Children from
low-income families have particularly low intakes of folate and
vitamins A and C.
Dietary deficiencies can affect short-term health, increasing the
risk of dental problems, anaemia and obesity. In the long term,
poor diet may increase the risk of coronary heart disease, strokes
and diabetes. Some cancers are believed to relate to a low intake
of fresh fruit and vegetables.
Under-nutrition, even in its milder forms can have detrimental
effects on cognitive development, behaviour, concentration and school
performance. There is evidence from the United States that improved
nutritional content of school meals resulted in significant increases
in student scores on standardised tests.
Benefit levels fall short of the amount needed to maintain an adequate
living standard. Research into the impact of this shortfall on families,
found that unexpected expenses were met by cutting back on food
and that reconciling quality with cost was difficult for parents.
The 1999 Local Authority Caterers Association Survey found that
22 per cent of parents rely on a school meal to provide a balanced
diet and that 60 per cent said that the school meal played a vital
role in their children’s diet.
A ‘whole school’ approach to healthy
eating
The Government have announced that nutritional standards are to
be introduced in England and Wales. CPAG supports this and would
welcome a similar approach in Scotland. This should be accompanied
by measures to encourage healthy eating. Most effective is a whole
school approach linking curriculum messages to a creative high quality
food service, offering a balanced diet at competitive prices.
Countries such as Britain where the teaching of food skills in
the classroom has declined, have seen a greater increase in reliance
on convenience foods and a measurable decline in the health of the
population. Nutrition and cooking skills, with an emphasis on providing
healthy meals on a low income should be reintroduced into the curriculum.
The introduction of School Nutrition Action Groups should be encouraged.
These involve children, parents, teachers and caterers in creating
school food policies and can be a successful way of promoting nutrition.
Schools need to take steps to ensure that healthier school meals
are not undermined by vending machines and school tuck shops. The
introduction of fruit tuck shops in some areas has been successful
in encouraging healthy eating. Such initiatives deserve further
attention.
Hot meals have recently been withdrawn in some areas. Parents have
expressed concerns. Cold meals may also be less attractive to children
who are paying, increasing the stigma as free school meal children
more obvious. Hot food provision can encourage children to sit together
reinforce dining skills. Hot meal provision should be reviewed and
guidelines set. Clear guidelines should also be set on what are
‘reasonable’ prices so that children are not excluded by cost.
Take-up
Take-up of school meals in Scotland is 79%. Take-up is much higher
in primary schools (83%) than in secondary schools (66%). Stigma,
truancy and school exclusion may be among the reasons children do
not take-up free school meals. Research into reasons for low take-up
should be prioritised so that appropriate steps can be taken to
improve matters.
There are indications that stigma is a key factor. Some schools,
for example, have separate queues for free meals, other children
can be made to wait until paying children have received their lunch.
In contrast, a number of schools take steps to avoid children being
readily identifiable, for example, by introducing swipe cards for
all children. Schools should be encouraged and assisted to introduce
sensitive service delivery methods. CPAG supports the Edinburgh
School Meal Action Group in recommending that good practice in the
management, supervision and evaluation of school meals should be
disseminated and pilot schools identified so that models of good
practice can be implemented and evaluated.
Extending free school meal entitlement
When family credit replaced family income supplement in 1988, entitlement
to free school meals was withdrawn and a notional compensatory amount
included in family credit. However, at such low levels of income,
there is no guarantee that the compensatory amount would be put
towards the cost of school meals rather than other basic essentials.
For families getting housing benefit and council tax benefit, the
value of the compensation is reduced by up to 85%.
Whilst the working families tax credit is more generous than family
credit, it does not lift all working families out of poverty. For
example, a couple with two children under 11 will not have sufficient
income to meet the ‘low cost but acceptable’ budget set by the Family
Budget Unit if they earn less than the current average for family
credit claimants (£129 gross per week).
The Family Budget Unit’s report provides a useful contribution
to the ‘how much is enough?’ debate. However, CPAG would like to
see the Government establish a ‘minimum income standard’ - a level
of income necessary to respect human dignity and combat social exclusion.
CPAG believes that extending free school meal entitlement to tax
credit recipients would be an important step towards ending child
poverty. 70,000 Scottish families get family credit.. An estimated
130,000 Scottish families should get working families tax credit,.
Together with moves to improve nutritional standards and service
delivery extending free school meal provision, could form part of
a strategy to improve the diets of school children. Extending entitlement
should help reduce stigma and increase take-up.
CPAG urges the Scottish Executive to consider extending free school
meal entitlement to all children of tax credit recipients.
Alternatively, they could be extended only to children under 11.
The cost could be limited by adopting the formula for passporting
tax credit recipients to health benefits (ie. families with gross
incomes of under £14,300 a year.)
Extrapolating from figures for the UK as a whole, CPAG estimates
that the cost of extending free school meals to all children of
tax credit recipients in Scotland would be £102.5 million, £52.5
million for children under 11. If the health benefits formula were
adopted, the cost would be reduced to £71.75 million for children
of all ages and £36.75 million for children under 11.
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