THE scrapping of grants for small schools struggling to provide free hot meals for children will cause serious financial pressure.

The Government has announced it is to cut support for schools with 150 pupils or fewer to fund the provision of lunches for infants.

In Cumbria, there are 161 schools which fall into this category including 27 in the Carlisle area, 31 in Eden, 37 in Allerdale and 22 in Copeland.

In 2015/16, these schools received £2,300 each to contribute towards the cost of delivering of the meals under the Universal Free School Meals initiative delivered by the previous Coalition Government.

This is on top of the £2.30 allocated for all children in reception and years one and two at schools across the county.

The move was introduced by the coalition to provide every infant child with a healthy meal at lunchtime. At the time it was said that this would save families around £437 per child each year.

Critics of the funding cut say the withdrawal of the subsidy will add to the financial demands already on schools fuelling concerns that some will have to take money from their teaching budgets to allow them to provide the meals.

When the Government announced that all infants should have a free meal in 2014 many schools had to take action to make sure they had the facilities to physically provide the meals whether that be a kitchen, a service hatch or a room where children could sit down and eat.

Some schools cook their own food while others have contracts with county council-owned food provider Orian and other groups.

Cumbrian MP Tim Farron has now called for the Government to provide continued support for these schools.

Clare Feeney-Johnson, cabinet member for schools and learning at Cumbria County Council, said: “Schools have a legal requirement to offer free school meals to these infant children. The £2,300 was transitional funding to smaller schools to allow them to meet the requirements.

“By removing this funding small schools already in a very difficult place will be under extra pressure. Personally I think this will put an extra strain on these schools.”

She said council would hold talks with the Schools Forum – a local panel of school representatives – to decide what action they would take.


Tim Farron  Mr Farron, meanwhile, said: “We were right to introduce free school meals under the coalition, as the evidence suggests that it helps to level the playing field between students. In order to do this, however, schools need assistance with the costs involved.

“Small rural schools will be disproportionately hit by this cut. Unless the Government continues to support the provision of free school meals in these schools, their ability to provide excellent teaching will be jeopardised as they have to use their other budgets to provide meals.

“Many small rural schools will not break even on the costs of producing hot meals, because they don’t have the economies of scale that larger schools in urban areas have.

“The sad reality, therefore, is that they will have to dig into other budgets in order to fund this, yet this is money they need in order to deliver top quality teaching and learning.”

The Department of Education said the extra £2,300 per school per year was “always intended to be temporary”.