LACA campaigns for government to level up school meal funding

LACA is calling on the government to standardise school meal funding across all four UK nations.

The school caterers’ association is campaigning for the new administration to commit to a minimum funding level of £3 per meal per child in the face of significant cost increases and staff shortages at educational sites.

Currently English schools outside London receive £2.53 per pupil per meal (London’s funding will rise to £3 from September), while Northern Irish schools are on £2.60, Welsh sites obtain £3.20 and Scottish schools receive £3.30.

At last week’s LACA Main Event held at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole, Anita Brown, catering and cleaning service manager at Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council and outgoing LACA national chair, told delegates: “Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are not doing anything different to England, they’re just better funded. Someone somewhere is currently subsidising that gap and if it’s not schools, it’s parents or the local authority.”

She pointed to food costs rising by 50% since 2020, while governmental funding for school meals has barely changed.

Brown also urged the government to mandate that meal funds are ringfenced, so that schools can’t take from the allocation to spend elsewhere.

Questioning why some families on Universal Credit don’t qualify for free school meals she encouraged the government to alter the policy, commenting: “It’s just not fair and it’s a massive issue.”

Brown was followed onto the rostrum by Judith Gregory, education catering business manager, Cardiff Council and the incoming LACA national chair, who reported on the funding situation in Wales.

Following the devolved Welsh government’s commitment to providing universal free school meals for primary aged children across Wales, the two-year programme started in September 2022. A rate of £2.90 per pupil per meal was originally set, but when the Welsh government recognised that encouraging local councils to use locally-sourced food was proving to exceed the budget, it undertook a review and raised the amount to £3.20 in January 2024.

Gregory called it a “transformational” intervention in terms of child poverty, supporting educational attainment, child nutrition and local food production and distribution.

Meanwhile, Colm Bradley of the Education Authority in Northern Ireland, warned that with staff, utilities and food costs all increasing: “We know that we need more [funding] because to produce a meal within £2.60 per pupil, it’s getting close to the point where it’s not feasible.”

The LACA Main Event also saw the School Chef of the Year 2024 and LACA Awards for Excellence presented.

Photo: Getty Images/iStockphoto