‘Challenge’ to provide free school meals

South Holland primary schools are “on track” to provide thousands of pupils with free school meals from September.

From the start of the new school year all youngsters in their first three years of primary school will be entitled to free dinners under a new Government scheme.

Lincolnshire County Council has welcomed the move to ensure all children get a nutritious meal, but has admitted it has faced “challenges” to ensure all schools are geared up to cater for so many pupils.

Figures suggest that there will be 23,445 pupils eligible for the free meals from September, with the local education authority expecting an uptake of 87 per cent – a total of 20,397.

Tony McGinty, assistant director for public health at the county council, said: “We support and welcome the announcement of universal infant free school meals to provide free, healthy and nutritious schools meals to infant pupils

“As well as the health benefits, this will mean there will be a cost saving to parents of approximately £435 per pupil per year, which is good news for parents.

“The timescale for doing this is very difficult and will present all authorities with a serious challenge, however, we are confident that the progress we are making will see all schools providing meals by September.”

A spokesman for the council explained that one of the main problems the authority has faced has been securing providers of meals for schools who do not currently have one.

But he said: “There are only a small handful left to secure providers for and we are confident of sorting these out before September.”

‘Hub and spoke’ catering service

Lincolnshire County Council has invested in primary and secondary school kitchens to support the school meal service in recent years.
Prior to 2006 there were 11 primary school kitchens and very few schools had a transported meal service. Since 2006 a “hub and spoke” transported school meal service has been introduced.
Rather than every small school having a kitchen this model makes economic sense and works well in our rural county.
Currently there are 45 kitchen catering facilities for primary schools across the county – a mix of on-site school kitchens, secondary school kitchens and private catering kitchens. There are 25 primary schools kitchens – 12 of which are “hub” kitchens transporting school meals to other primary schools. A total of 15 private catering providers also have kitchen sites across the county and 15 secondary schools provide meals to their feeder primaries.
Free school meal take up increased as a result of hot meal provision and today there are 12,285 children enjoying school meals. Paid meal take up is around 30 per cent.