New report explores the free school meals system and highlights forthcoming changes
The County Councils Network has partnered with Basis and Bremner & Co. to release a new report which explores the free school meals system in England and highlights changes on the horizon.
This report is the latest in the CCN Dialogues series. It highlights that there are children across England who are entitled to free school meals (FSM), and warns that this is because of complex bureaucracy and the stigma some families feel with applying.
The study details that across the country a growing number of councils are adopting an ‘opt-out auto-award’ approach to FSM registration. This means councils and schools work together to identify and register entitled pupils for FSM and only remove pupils from the registration list if they choose to opt-out.
Research in the report suggests that families could save up to £500 a year per entitled child; and schools could receive funding through the Pupil Premium and related grants worth up to £3,000 per young person.
To help its member councils understand these reforms to FSM, the CCN has teamed up with Basis and Bremner & Co. to reflect on their experiences in this study. They have both worked directly with six councils over the past three years, (including county and unitary councils) to implement secure and legally compliant opt-out systems. In total, these six projects alone identified more than 4,000 additional eligible pupils and unlocked over £9m in new funding for schools.
With changes to the system coming into force soon this document explains these policy changes in more detail.
Watch a webinar that the CCN held with Basis and Bremner & Co. in April below.
