The Officer Key Decision meeting of Newham Council on 27 May 2025 was scheduled to discuss the outcome of a mini competition for the Holiday Activities and Food Programme (HAF) Summer 2025 Programme. The report pack outlined recommendations for awarding contracts to various organisations to deliver the summer programme. The decision to award these contracts was delegated to Laura Eden, Corporate Director for Children and Young People.

Holiday Activities and Food Programme (HAF) Summer 2025 Programme

The report pack included a recommendation for Laura Eden, Corporate Director for Children and Young People, to agree to the award of contracts totalling £956,951.20 to 24 lead delivery organisations. These organisations would deliver the Summer programme, providing 38,415 places for children and young people.

The purpose of the HAF grant is to provide free places at holiday clubs during the Easter, summer, and Christmas school holidays in 2025 for primary and secondary aged children and young people in Newham who are eligible for benefits-related free school meals. These holiday clubs will provide at least one daily nutritious meal, as well as a range of physical and enriching activities. The grant can also be used to provide free or subsidised holiday club places for children and young people who are not in receipt of benefits-related free school meals, but who the local authority believe could benefit from HAF provision.

The Summer mini competition was divided into three lots:

• Lot 1: Universal provision for primary school aged children
• Lot 2: Universal provision for secondary school aged children
• Lot 3: Specialist provision for children with significant or complex special educational needs and / or disabilities (SEND).

Providers were invited to apply to only a single lot, or to multiple lots, but only lots which they were appointed to on the framework. All Lot 1 and Lot 2 providers were asked to put arrangements in place to accommodate children and young people with low-level SEND needs – up to 12% of their total places. Providers were asked to bid for a minimum of 10 days and a maximum of 20 days of HAF provision. Bidders' responses were evaluated for quality (50 %), price (40%) and social value (5%) and sustainability (5%). Quality questions were assessed against the HAF service specification.

The council received applications totalling £1,521,775, and 25 of the 40 applications met the minimum criteria. The minimum score for Lot 1 was set at 52 points, the minimum score for Lot 2 was set at 56 points and the minimum score for Lot 3 was set at 57 points. The report pack stated that:

This scoring criteria ensures the maximum number of places for each Lot within the available funding envelope. The 25 providers listed in Appendix 1, met/ exceeded the minimum requirements and the total value to be awarded is £956,951.20, which is £6,951.20 more than the Council anticipated at the time of distributing the grant for Easter, Summer and Christmas HAF programmes in 2025. However, due to an underspend in the Easter programme as a result of lower attendances, the additional funding was available to be allocated to the programme.

The HAF programme is intended to help the council deliver on its agenda to build a fairer Newham, enabling children and young people to achieve their potential, be safe, happy, and healthy regardless of their background. It also forms part of the Council’s Young People and Food Security Strategy, which is tackling the impact of food insecurity and holiday hunger faced by children and young people in the borough.

Alternative options considered and rejected were:

• Doing nothing, which the report pack said would limit the delivery of HAF provision to internal team and would not be in accordance with the requirements of the DfE grant as it would not provide sufficient HAF provision, nor would it provide a diverse enough range of activities or specialist support.
• Agreeing funding for local authority-maintained schools only, which the report pack said would not be in accordance with the requirement of the DfE grant as it would not provide sufficient HAF provision, nor would it provide a diverse enough range of activities or specialist support, and that there had been no interest from local authority schools in respect of HAF 2025.

The Holiday Activities and Food Programme (HAF) is funded from a government grant (the Department for Education, DfE). LBNewham can claim up to £2,049,110 in eligible expenditure for the delivery of the HAF programme in financial year 2025/26.

The report pack stated that the arrangements are within the threshold for light touch services covering a variety of matters caught within the DfE grant programme and are being made under Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (as amended).

The following organisations were listed in Appendix 1 as proposed contract awardees:

Lot 1: Universal provision for primary school aged children including those with low-level SEND.

• Ackeee Tree
• Aston Mansfield
• Bonny Downs Community Association
• Elite Pathways Sport & Fitness
• Empower Youth
• GSJM Sports T/A Premier Education
• Hope 2 Humanity
• Kulan Somali Organisation
• Newham Sports Club CIC
• Omega Sportz
• SOUL
• Sphere Support
• The 5es
• Wright Education
• UK Islamic Mission
• West Ham United Foundation
• West Silvertown Community Foundation
• Wonder Years

Lot 2: Universal provision for secondary school aged children including those with low-level SEND.

• Ackeee Tree
• Aston Mansfield
• Bonny Downs Community Association
• Hope 2 Humanity
• Kulan Somali Organisation
• Newham Sports Club CIC
• Rights & Equalities In Newham
• The 5es
• SOUL
• West Silvertown Community Foundation

Lot 3: Specialist provision for children with significant or complex special educational needs and / or disabilities.

• Ambition Aspire Achieve (ARC)+Newham/)
• Ambition Aspire Achieve (Abbey Hub)+Newham/)
• SOUL
• West Silvertown Community Foundation