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Free School Meals

Answer

All pupils attending state-funded schools in reception, year one and year two in England will from September 2014 be offered a free school lunch. We will be providing over £1 billion funding for this policy between 2014 and 2016.

The Secretary of State for Education, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), and I wrote to all local authorities and schools in England on 23 January 2014¹ setting out how revenue funding for this policy will be allocated in 2014-15. Schools will receive a flat rate of £2.30 per meal taken, based on actual take-up by newly eligible infant pupils, which will be measured in the Schools Census from October 2014. In addition, in recognition that some smaller schools will face particular challenges, we will provide transitional funding totalling £22.5 million in 2014-15 for small schools, which will be provided before the start of the new academic year. We will provide more details on the revenue funding arrangements in due course. We expect to announce allocations later in the year, when pupil numbers from the January 2014 school census are finalised.

This revenue funding is in addition to the £150 million of capital funding being be made available in 2014-15 to support schools and local authorities in providing the facilities necessary to deliver the new entitlement. Allocations of capital funding to local authorities were announced on 18 December 2013².¹

Available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ministerial-letter-about-universal-infant-free-school-meals

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/letter-to-local-authorities-on-universal-infant-free-school-meals²

Available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/capital-allocations-for-basic-need-and-infant-free-school-meals

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

184863; 574 cc672-3W

Session

2013-14

Subjects

Finance Free school meals

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk