Agenda item

On a motion from Councillor Lesley Mansell, seconded by Councillor Robin Moss, it was

RESOLVED unanimously that

Council notes:

1. It’s hard to concentrate, learn or interact when hungry – especially as a child.
2. Food insecurity impairs the growth of body and mind, as well as relationships. Such disadvantages can have lifelong impact. 

Council welcomes the work of, amongst many others,

3. BNES’ Director of Public Health, whose Annual Report (Sep ’24) estimates 5% of our population, over 8,000 residents, sometimes or often don’t have enough to eat;
4. The Trussell Trust, who say over 3,000 local children were supported by emergency food parcels last year;
5. St John’s Foundation, who are funding free school meals for 700 children in six local primary schools until July 2025,and B&NES Fair Food Alliance (BFFA), made up of over 60 organisations, who developed the ‘B&NES food equity action plan 2022-25’.

Council acknowledges that:

6. Free school meals (FSM) are government-funded, and administered by councils.
7. To qualify for FSM, families must receive certain income-related benefits, or if they receive Universal Credit their annual household income must be below £7,400 after tax.
8. Estimates say FSM can save a hard-pressed family £1,400 a year.
9. For each FSM-registered child, a school gets pupil premium funding for wider support: £1,455 in primary schools; £1,035 in secondaries.

Council is concerned that:

10. The numbers of eligible children in BNES leapt by 27% between May ‘20-May ‘23.
11. This January, 17% of children in B&NES state schools (4,715) were eligible – nearly 2,500 were at primary school.
12. Too many eligible families aren’t claiming FSM because of administration, language, literacy issues and stigma.

Council is alarmed that:

13. Across all age groups, the gap between the attainment of children on FSM and not in BNES is consistently larger than the gap across the rest of the country.
14. For 7-11 year-olds (key stage 2), the gap is the worst in the country
15. For 0-5 year-olds, (early years foundation) BNES is the third worst in the country.

Council notes that

16. A large number of local authorities have introduced FSM auto-enrolment for eligible families – Sheffield, Lambeth, Wandsworth, Lewisham, Bedford, York, Coventry, to name a few.
17. Reported benefits include better health, concentration and achievement, and reductions in stigma, absence, and under-achievement. School funding increases and everyone gains from the benefits throughout the child’s lifetime.
18. In implementing auto-enrolment, officers will look to capture data from several systems and ensure we do not contravene any legal access rights. We will also provide opportunities to families to opt out of the process should they wish to do so for personal reasons.
19. The Household Support Fund has been used to provide vouchers for children who receive income-related free school meals during school holiday periods, but this is dependent on parents claiming free school meals for their children. Some low-income households could be missing out on this additional support during school holiday periods.

And therefore resolves to:

20. Request Cabinet and council services continue to investigate and implement auto-enrolment to tackle the lack of take-up by eligible families across BNES before September 2025, learning from the work done by York University, FixOurFood, The Food Foundation and experienced local authorities.

21. Subject to Cabinet implementing FSM auto-enrolment then Council requests the Children, Adults, Health and Wellbeing Policy Development and Scrutiny Panel receives and scrutinise progress updates from the auto-enrolment project in 2025.

22. Ask the Leader to write to the government and our local MPs to request a national rule change so that all families on the relevant benefits can be auto-enrolled, rather than councils seeking to implement this project individually.

[Notes:

1.  The above successful resolution contains sections in bold proposed by Councillor Paul May and accepted into the motion by the mover and seconder.]