Education Committee supports FSM auto enrolment

The Education Committee has told the Government it should use its Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to remove the requirement to apply for free school meals for eligible children from low-income families.

In a new report, the cross-party Committee makes several recommendations including that all children who are entitled to free school meals (FSM) should be automatically enrolled to receive them. Children aged four to 16 may be entitled to FSM if their parents or carers receive income-related benefits such as Universal Credit. But experts told the Committee that one in 10 children who are currently eligible miss out because of language barriers or difficulty with the admin process, and that failing to legislate for auto-enrolment would be a “missed opportunity” to feed hungry children at school.

Rather than waiting for the government to deal with this issue, some councils have already introduced auto-enrolment within their own authority, whereby eligible children are offered meals unless their families specifically opt out.

Torbay authority have announced that they intend to introduce auto enrolment for FSMs, to generate extra funding for families and schools.  Devon Local Authority is investigating doing the same.  If you would like to know more about FSM auto enrolment have a look at the DAG Briefing Paper – Free School Meals Auto Enrolment.