Purpose

The Department for Education (DfE) have
provided every local authority in England funding to coordinate
free holiday provision, including healthy food and enriching
activities for children eligible for benefits related free school
meals (FSM).  Referred to as the Holiday
Activities and Food Programme (HAF) the funding provided is to
facilitate provision for the Easter, summer and Christmas Holidays. The County Council
has an allocation of £1,862,380 for the delivery of the
2024-25 HAF programme.
 
Expressions of Interest (EOI) have been
received from a range of organisations in West Sussex to provide
activities and food during the Easter, summer and Christmas holiday periods. Following an
evaluation of these EOI a range of organisations were awarded
funding for one week of the Easter holidays; this resulted in the
grant expenditure to providers of £320,547.04.
 
As the provision for the summer holidays
covers a 4-week period this will result in expenditure of over
£500k, requiring a key decision. This report seeks approval
to distribute the funding to organisations whose offer has met the
required criteria and outlines the proposed arrangements for the
remainder of the funding allocation the County Council will
receive.

Decision

The Assistant
Director (Education and Skills) has approved:-

(1) The award of
Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) Programme summer grants to the
organisations identified in Appendix A up to a total value of
£1,087,862.

(2) The allocation of
further HAF funds up to a value of £25,000 to assist
providers with delivering the food offer in specific circumstances
and to ensure inclusivity for children with higher needs as
described in paragraph 2.4 of the report.

(3)The allocation of
HAF funds to an anticipated value of £270,000 to providers
for a programme for the Christmas holiday period including the
opportunity to provide some whole family sessions.