Schools across England could face an annual shortfall of £310 million in covering the cost of free school meals (FSM) unless action is taken to reform the national school meals funding system, according to a new report.
Earlier this year, the government announced changes to the eligibility criteria for means-tested free school meals. All pupils from households in receipt of Universal Credit will now benefit from FSM – over 600,000 children according to government predictions.
Researchers from Northumbria and Lincoln universities and Alliance4Children modelled the financial impact of providing FSM – both to those children already receiving them and to the additional recipients – on school budgets. This analysis, which used open data from the Department for Education (DfE), found that state-funded primary and secondary schools in England could be left needing to find between £11,000 and £25,000 per year from their individual teaching and learning budgets to ‘top up’ the costs of FSM during the 2026/27 academic year.
This shortfall is due to the level of funding schools receive for FSM, compared to the prices they are charged by caterers. The government currently awards all state funded schools in England £2.58 per FSM child to cover the cost of providing a meal each day, with an increase to £2.61 due in the 2025/2026 academic year. However caterers, who have been faced with sharply rising costs, are charging schools an average of £3.00 per meal. As a result, the overall shortfall in England could total £310 million – schools in the South East alone face a shortfall of up to £44.5 million.
Professor Paul Stretetsky, a social and political scientist at the University of Lincoln, commented: ‘Our findings are a clear cause for concern, and we would also highlight that this deficit is not evenly spread across England. Those schools with the highest numbers of students receiving free school meals are in the most disadvantaged areas, and they are the hardest hit in terms of deficit per pupil.’
The researchers are urging the government to review the funding system for FSM. Full report available here: https://tinyurl.com/3nry39wn