Mr Adrian Sanders – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mr Adrian Sanders on 2014-03-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to help schools that are unable to deliver free infant school meals in September 2014 because of a lack of capital funding.

David Laws

The Department for Education has previously confirmed that it would be allocating £150 million in the 2014-15 financial year to support the implementation of the universal infant free school meals (UIFSM) policy. Local authorities (LAs) are also free to use their budgets for improvement and maintenance to support this objective. We allocated £1.4 billion to schools, LAs and the Academies Capital Maintenance Fund for maintenance and improvement in 2014-15.

On 6 March we launched a package of implementation support measures to help schools to provide meals to eligible pupils. This includes a national UIFSM support service, run by school food experts, which will offer advice and guidance to schools that need assistance in implementing UIFSM. The support will include a telephone helpline, the sharing of good practice, and intensive face-to-face support

The Department also announced on 6 March that it would be providing transitional funding to small schools with eligible pupils, worth a minimum of £3,000, which qualifying schools will be able to use to help them overcome delivery challenges.