CPAG Scotland: Campaign for Free School Meals

Media coverage

Following years of campaign work raising awareness of the importance of free school meals through the media, amongst policy makers, working to build cross party support, attending fringe meetings at party conferences, monitoring the success of Scottish Executive strategies, working with local communities to organise community based campaign meetings, the Campaign has achieved significant results.

Scottish Government: Extends free school meals to all children in P1-P3
The Scottish Government announced in October 2008 that free school meals would be rolled out to all children in Primary 1 to 3 from 2010. Announcing the move Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Education said, that “The Government has made it a priority to help children in their early years and this initiative does just that, providing every child with a free school meal in their first years at primary school.” Whilst there is no legal entitlement to a free school meal for P1 to P3 pupils local authorities have explicitly agreed the roll out of free school meals as part of the funding settlement and underpinning Concordat signed by local authorities in 2007.

Free school meal entitlement extended to all children in families receiving maximum working tax credit
Whilst continuing to press for a universal approach to free school meal entitlement as the most effective way of ensuring every child gets a healthy meal during the school day CPAG welcomed the significant extension to free school meal entitlement that will come into force in Scotland from August 2009. The Education (School Lunches) (Scotland) Regulations 2009 have now been passed by the Scottish Parliament and will come into force on 3 August 2009. The regulations will mean that, in addition to the current criteria, pupils whose parents or carers are in receipt of an award of both Child tax Credit and Working Tax Credit that is based on the threshold for receipt of maximum Working Tax Credit (currently set by the UK Government at £6,420) will be entitled to free school lunches. The Scottish Government estimates an additional 44 000 children will become eligible for free school meals as a result.

Free school meal pilot announced by new Scottish Government
The announcement followed the successful piloting of free school meals for all primary one to three pupils in five local authorities (Glasgow, the Borders, East Ayrshire, Fife and West Dunbartonshire) for six months from October 2007. The evaluation of this pilot found that the universal approach increased uptake from 53% to 75% overall. Significantly take up also increased amongst those already entitled to free school meals – up on average by 4.4%, but with increases up to 8.5% in some areas.

Scottish Executive pledge
Scotland’s former First Minister, Jack McConnell MSP, delivered the keynote address at the launch of Poverty in Scotland 2007 in March 2007 when he also pledged that if Labour won power in the forthcoming election, that they would extend free school meals to an extra 100,000 children whose parents receive working tax credit.

Scottish Executive: School Meals and Snacks (Scotland) Bill
The campaign lobbied members of the Scottish Parliament to support a new, School Meals and Snacks (Scotland) Bill proposal lodged by Frances Curran MSP on 22 March 2006. This Bill aimed to introduce free, nutritious school meals for all of Scotland’s primary school children, as well as statutory nutritional standards, a complaints and enforcement scheme, powers to ban the promotion of junk food in schools and guaranteed access to water and milk. CPAG in Scotland, along with the Association of Headteachers and Deputes in Scotland, Poverty Alliance, One Plus and the Scottish Churches Social Inclusion Network wrote a letter (479 KB Word doc) to every MSP calling on them to support the Bill. Individual supporters also wrote to their MSPs and responded to a Scottish Executive consultation on the Bill. An analysis and summary of the 500 overwhelmingly positive responses to the consultation on the proposed Bill in 2005 and can be viewed on the Scottish Parliament website. Many MSPs from different parties, including Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green, Independent and Socialist members, pledged their support for the new Bill. However, due to pressures on the Parliamentary timetable, Frances Curran MSP’s free school meals Bill (along with several other Members’ Bills) was not considered, despite receiving massive support and having met all deadlines.

Other campaign activity includes: working to build cross party support, attending fringe meetings at party conferences, monitoring the success of Scottish Government strategies, working with local communities to organise community based campaign meetings and an ebulletin keeping supporters up-to-date with the campaign’s progress. To subscribe please email acarr@cpagscotland.org.uk

Background

Scotland has amongst the worst child poverty rates and health inequalities in Europe. The Scottish Campaign for Free School Meals was launched in 2001 to persuade the then Scottish Executive to introduce universal free school meals and therefore ensure that every Scottish school child has at least one decent nutritious meal a day.

The campaign brings together a broad-based coalition of organisations across Scotland, including children's charities, churches, unions, public health groups, anti-poverty groups, dieticians, politicians and local government representatives. It is coordinated by CPAG in Scotland along with One Parent Families Scotland, the Scottish Local Government Forum Against Poverty and the Poverty Alliance.

The case for free school meals

A significant proportion of the 240,000 children in Scotland living below the poverty line do not currently qualify for free school meals, despite the financial hardship their families face. Of those who are entitled, one in five do not take it up due largely to the complex bureaucracy of claiming and stigma associated with the current limited access to free school meals. Therefore, means-testing of free school meals leaves tens of thousands of Scotland’s poorest children missing out on healthy school meals.

Research from a pilot project providing universal free school meals to all primary pupils in Hull found that take-up increased from 36% to 64% and resulted in better eating habits outside of school, calmer classrooms, reduced health disadvantage and savings for stretched family budgets. View the report on the findings of the Hull pilot.

More recently the Scottish Government’s pilot free schools programme for P1 to P3 pupils in five local authority areas had a substantial effect on take up of school meals, increasing take up by 22 percentage points from 53% to 75%. Furthermore amongst children already entitled to free school meals under the existing means-testing arrangements take-up rose by up to 8.5 percentage points. An evaluation of the Scottish pilots also found that there was evidence that the policy had an impact on healthy eating at home, concluding that: “The trial provided pupils with an opportunity to try new foods, resulting in pupils asking at home for food they had tried at school” View the evaluation of the Scottish pilots here.

Free school meals is a direct way of tackling the impact of child poverty and ill health by ensuring all children, whatever their home circumstances, get at least one healthy meal a day. The case for free school meals is based on three key arguments: tackling poverty, improving health and reducing stigma.

Tackling poverty
A significant number of children officially living in poverty in Scotland currently have no right to free school meals, particularly those who are living in households where parents are working, but are on low wages. Extending entitlement to free school meals would therefore help increase the disposable income of some of Scotland’s poorest households, leaving poorest families over £25 a week better off. This could play an important role in ensuring that parents are not worse off when moving into work, and play a significant role in supporting the welfare-to-work element of government strategies to end child poverty.

Improving health
There is considerable evidence that adequate nutritional standards in school meals could make a significant impact on children's health. Health and nutrition experts tell us that:

Free nutritional school meals have a positive impact on Scotland’s poor health record and help to tackle obesity, as they would have "the potential to transform the diet of our young people" [note 1]. Further evidence suggests that they would improve cognition, attendance and classroom behaviour, crucial factors in tackling the opportunity gaps disadvantaged children face [note 2].

Reducing stigma
Means-testing creates stigma [note 3] and this discourages uptake of free school meals. One in three Scots children who are entitled, do not take them, [note 4] exacerbating the impact of poverty on children's lives [note 5]. A universal service, such as in NHS hospitals, would remove the stigma attached to free school meals.

Briefings

Press releases

For more information contact:
John Dickie
Head of CPAG in Scotland,
jdickie@cpagscotland.org.uk
or telephone 0131 552 3303

References
1. Dr Wendy Wrieden and Professor AS Anderson, 'Nutritional dimensions of school meals' in "Even The Tatties Have Batter" eds. Usha Brown and Danny Phillips, CPAG in Scotland, 2002. [back to text]
2. Cornelius Ani and Sally Grantham-McGregor 'The Effects of Breakfast Clubs on Educational Performance, Attendance and Classroom Behaviour' in eds. Nick Donovan and Cathy Street, Fit for School, NPI, 1999. [back to text]
3. Pamela Story and Rosemary Chamberlain, Improving Take Up of Free School Meals, Research Brief 270, DfEE, 2001. [back to text]
4. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/bulletins/00347-00.asp [back to text]
5. Will McMahon and Tim Marsh, Filling the Gap, CPAG, 1999. [back to text]

Campaign for Free School Meals

Campaign update

Background

The case for free school meals

Briefings

Press releases