Purpose

The Mayor and Executive
Member for Adult Social Care and Public Health and the Executive Member for
Governance and Finance submitted a report for Executive’s consideration.

 

The report sought approval
for the Council to undertake the Free School Meal and Pupil Premium
Optimisation pilot. The pilot was time sensitive with an enrolment completion
date of September 2024 in readiness for the October 2024 census which was the
deadline for pupil premium data to drive school funding.

 

The Council needed to
engage with Middlesbrough schools to seek approval to progress with the
auto-enrolment of Free School Meals and Pupil Premium optimisation pilot.

 

The purpose of the pilot
was to ensure that schools were receiving the maximum benefit of Pupil Premium
funding to address the attainment gap as well as contribute towards the
Council’s plan to reduce poverty and create a healthy place by enabling children
who are entitled to free school meals to access them.

 

Nationally 1 in 10 children
were not receiving the Free School Meals to which they were entitled. The Child
Poverty Action Group in 2021 in the North East of
England estimated a regional Free School Meals under-registration rate of 11%.
Schools were also not receiving Pupil Premium funding and other associated
funding dependent on Free School Meal registration.

 

The scheme would ensure
that all eligible households received Free School Meals and that schools were
maximising the Pupil Premium. There were several reasons, including burdensome
and complex administration, language or low levels of literacy and a feeling of
stigma or embarrassment from families that prevented some households from
claiming Free School Meals.

 

The scheme also contributed
towards reducing poverty, as children would have access to a Free School Meal,
which could be funded by the parent (a saving to the household of c£400.00 per
child per year).

 

Access to a healthy meal
for every eligible child would contribute towards the Council’s Plan 2024-2027,
creating a healthy place, helping our residents to live longer, healthier
lives. It would ensure that the most vulnerable children and families in poverty
had access to Free School Meals and would ensure children were receiving a
healthy balanced diet and would contribute to wider health priorities such as
reducing childhood obesity. In addition, this process would have the potential
to support closing the attainment gap through the allocation of Pupil Premium
funding to schools.

 

The Mayor commented that
this was an exciting initiative and related the benefits of the scheme to his
personal experiences. Similar schemes had seen success in Sheffield. It was
clarified that in Middlesbrough 1 in 6 eligible families were not claiming free
school meals.

 

A discussion took place
that expressed the benefits the scheme would bring to residents and how it
would have knock-on benefits to other initiatives.

 

Decision

ORDERED that Executive approve progression of a pilot
initiative with schools, between officers across Revenues and Benefits Service
and Public Health, to support the implementation of auto-enrolment of Free
School Meals, with the aim of increasing the number of children registered for
Free School Meals and Pupil Premium, subject to the agreement of Middlesbrough
schools.