Judith Gregory, LACA national chair, told delegates that the inadequate funding of school meals that the organisation has been campaigning about for some time will only be exacerbated by measures in the recent budget, including a rise in employers National Insurance contributions and an increase of the National Minimum Wage.
The letter says: “As advocates for nutritious and accessible meals for our children, we believe it is crucial to bring to your attention the significant hurdles that threaten the quality and sustainability of school food services. The first are the cost challenges related to the current funding for free school meals - benefit-based Free School Meals and Universal Infant Free School Meals - which are not aligned with the real costs of provision.
“The second involves worries about plans to roll out breakfast provision across schools in England. We want the scheme to be treated as a standalone service with adequate funding, and that the School Food Standards should be amended to require that breakfast provision meets specific nutritional criteria.
"Thirdly, the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, heightened by measures announced in the budget, has exacerbated these challenges. If funding is not increased to at least £3 per meal, we face the grim reality of declining standards and inadequate service provision. This is not just a financial issue; it is a matter of public health and social equity.”
She said the letter urges the Government to recognise the importance of investing in the school food services to raise the healthiest generation of children ever.
“By increasing funding and ensuring that it aligns with the true costs of provision, year-on-year, we can safeguard the health of our children and support their educational journeys.”
Lee Petar of Menara Advisors, who works with LACA on its political campaigning, added: “We have lots of new MPs now and you, ther LACA members, are the best advocates for the sector. They don’t know anything about it, so invite them in to your schools and let them try a school meal.
“We are at breaking point with the ongoing under-funding and the employer NI contributions. Please sign the letter because we want the biggest number of names and I believe that it could have a real impact.
“What’s different now from when we have asked the Government before about under-funding? That’s what you need to provide in terms of the research into funding for the breakfast scheme, and with case studies. Give us examples we can use, so please share them.”
And school meals consultant and former LACA chair Pat Fellows added: “We’ve got to work together. We know the Government is strapped for money, but we need some sense. We need the money, and we need the money to be ring-fenced for school meals.”
In other presentations at the Autumn Seminar, which was held at the Chesford Grange Hotel, Warwickshire, LACA members heard from several speakers with figures and research about the school breakfast club scheme planned in England, local authority involvement in school feeding across the UK, and how LACA’s social media numbers stack up.
Judith Gregory ran through some of the details of the breakfast club scheme, sharing that a survey of members showed that just 40% said they supported it, while 39% said they did not.
However, when the question was phrased differently then 72% said they would prefer to see the funding diverted to support lunches, while only 9% disagreed.
She revealed that LACA had done a simple costing of the scheme that priced provision at £1.98 per child for food and labour, though excluding costs for supervision and cleaning.
Working on a 27% uptake – which is what Wales achieves with its long standing breakfast club programme – would put the annual cost at £528m. However, Labour has committed to investing only £315m in breakfast clubs by the 2028-29 school year.
Judith said: “There are a number of questions we have beyond the simple one about apparent lack of funding. Who will deliver the breakfast service – school caterers, schools, or contractors? How will the timings work? In Wales we only enough time to eat breakfast, it’s not a child-minding service. And time is needed to set up and clean up afterwards in multi-use areas.
“There’s also the question of staffing. Will the teaching staff be involved at all? And is the breakfast club scheme for all pupils or just free school meals (FSM) pupils?”
LACA business director Neil Porter shared with members some data about local authority involvement in school meal provision in the UK. This showed that in England it is very fragmented, but much less so in both Scotland and Wales.
In England provision solely by local authority is 36.7% of schools, while 23.3% is by local authority via a contractor, 4% via an arms-length organisation, while 36% of meals are served without any local authority involvement.
In Wales 90.9% of meal provision is carried out by local authorities, while in 9.1% of schools it is done by local authorities via contractors. In Scotland the situation showed 84.4% of provision by local authorities, with the remaining 15.6% served by local authorities via arms-length bodies.
Gail Walker of Open Door, which operates LACA’s social media accounts reported that the total number of followers had grown by 3,235 to 14,065 over the last year, a jump of 23%. She described LinkedIn, which is ‘a professional space and more in-depth’ as the organisation’s ‘hero platform’. It regularly records engagement of 7.5% among followers while the industry average is just over 1%.
The key event fort LACA had been the Great School Lunch at the House of Commons, which had been attended by 20 MPs who shared the success and key messages of the event to their followers, effectively extending the reach of LACA by more than 300,000.
The seminar also heard from two LACA Award winners. Theo Callender from Cardiff Council offered the seminar some insight into the authority’s Flexible Supported Employment Pathways programme which aimed to help young disabled people who were still on the school roll with a 12-week placement.
He said: “They learn skills, develop confidence, social and communication attributes. And existing staff get a boost to morale by working with them and helping them learn, which was an unexpected benefit to the team.”
And Caroline Morgan of Local Food Links described how the not-for-profit provider started from nothing 25 years ago when Dorset had no cooked meal provision. It now has three hub kitchens serving 58 schools with 5,000 meals a day, with 52 of the schools classified as ‘small’ and serving 150 meals a day or fewer.