Agenda item

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.

 

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.

 

OPTIONS

 

Do nothing: To continue with the current application process whereby the responsibility rests with households to apply for Free School Meals, whilst this was still the route, the approach by the Council would ensure applications were maximised as is the Pupil Premium.

 

Delay the auto-enrolment until the 2025 Census. The current timescales were very tight by delaying this launch would allow for more robust plans to be put in place. Although any delay would impact on the transitional protection as described in the report with the schools potentially missing out on financial support.

 

REASONS

 

The initiative took a proactive approach to ensure that all children who were eligible for Free School Meals were identified and enrolled for Free School Meals.

 

To ensure that the Schools received transitional protection for income related Free School Meal, those eligible needed to be identified and captured on the October 2024 Census. All activities relating to this initiative needed to be completed by the end of September 2024.

 

Some children would automatically receive Free School Meals due to the Universal Infant Free School Meals, if they were in Reception, Year 1, and Year 2, although the school may have missed out on Pupil Premium.

 

Any successful claims would mean the Schools would see an increase in Free School Meal take up and an increase in the level of Pupil Premium income that they generate from participation in the pilot.

 

A small sample size of 60 Middlesbrough households were assessed utilising existing data sets held by the Council, which determined that a potential of 11 households with children, who would be eligible for Free School Meals. Based on this figure, if those children were primary aged children, this would result in an additional £16,280.00 of Pupil Premium funding coming into schools in Middlesbrough (if secondary pupils, this would equate to £11,550.00).

 

Under the Ever 6 Scheme (source: Department for Education) if a household was entitled to Free School Meals the current scheme meant that the school will benefit from Pupil Premium for a period of time irrespective of any subsequent changes to the household income.

 

The policy was a key decision that impacted on two or more wards and would involve engagement with all Middlesbrough schools.