Schools discover the hidden cost of giving every infant a free hot dinner

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/mar/02/schools-free-school-meals-pupil-premium-funding

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It’s six months since headteacher Emma Payne opened a new kitchen to provide hot meals for her pupils. The problems of starting up are in the past. But now there are new issues to deal with. Because the meals are free, fewer parents are claiming free school meals, and that is going to cost the school £9,240 in pupil premium.

“It’s mostly new reception parents who haven’t realised they need to sign up,” says Payne. “We’ve tried really hard to explain why claiming is important.”

The Guardian has been following the progress of her school – St Mary Redcliffe Primary in Bristol – since February last year, as the universal infant free school meal (UIFSM) policy has been rolled out. At this large primary, where some pupils live in one of the 10% most deprived wards in the UK, the January census shows that the number on free school meals (FSM) in reception has gone down by almost 50% in a year.

Related: Free school meals: are the right children getting served?

When the UIFSM policy was announced 18 months ago, heads were quick to point out that giving free meals to infants might well result in parents no longer applying for FSM. And because the pupil premium, worth £1,320 per child every year, is allocated on the basis FSM numbers, the implications for some schools could be serious.

If this all sounds a bit hit and miss, that’s because it is. Some school leaders are now saying that a new system must be found to ensure that the most vulnerable children get the pupil premium they are entitled to.

Are schools trying hard enough to get parents to apply? When restaurateur, school governor and School Food Plan co-author Henry Dimbleby tweeted last year that “the trick” to getting parents to claim free school meals was simply “to ask them”, it provoked pained expressions from heads and school business managers who had been trying to do exactly that. They need to: thousands of pounds of pupil premium per school depends on their FSM numbers.

Payne says she “completely gets” why families under strain may not prioritise yet another school admin request with no obvious benefit. Children are, after all, already getting a free lunch, and the premium goes to the school, not the family. “There can also be a question of pride or worries about stigma,” she says.

Even before the introduction of UIFSM, it was impossible for Payne to persuade all eligible parents to claim, but now it’s even harder. Last academic year, she asked Bristol council for the number of pupils who would get FSM if they claimed. “At that point, it turned out we had 124 claiming, and 93 entitled but not claiming: we were missing out on over £87,000. Given the level of need at this school, our children just can’t afford to lose any more.”

The sums involved across the country could amount to tens of millions of pounds. In Birmingham, for example, last May 31% of reception children were claiming free meals. For the new cohort of pupils that began school in September, that had slipped to 26%. Because Birmingham’s reception roll is down on last year, this represents a 15% fall.

In simple numbers, 795 fewer reception children in Birmingham are claiming FSM this year compared with last. If there is no pick-up in the January census figures on which pupil premium allocations are based – to be published in the summer – well over £1m will have been lost to schools in that city alone.

Even for primaries that have managed to maintain FSM numbers, there’s been an ongoing expense in urging parents to sign up, says London primary school business manager Nicky Gillhespy. “It took us a lot of effort, which obviously cost money in admin time,” she explains. “We made a brochure, wrote to all parents, had info on our weekly newsletters and website, offered free swimming lessons, school trips and school branded fleeces for those that applied, and then approached parents who we thought might be eligible and literally begged them to apply.”

At Dunraven School in Streatham, south London, where Micon Metcalfe is finance director, FSM numbers in reception were down 25% this September compared with last. That means a loss of £5,200 in pupil premium in reception. Despite significant efforts, including free uniform offers to get more reception parents to claim, not one has.

“Other school business managers are finding it harder, too, to get parents to sign up,” Metcalfe says. “We are trying to incentivise, but you have to balance the cost of the incentive against what you might – no guarantees – get back.”

Given that local authorities, which administer benefit claims, hold all the information needed to assess families’ FSM entitlement, there is bafflement as to why the system isn’t being simplified. “What makes a lot of the school business managers cross is that this information could perfectly well be collated by government or the local authority, which have the data,” says Metcalfe.

Gillhespy echoes her frustration. “If data sharing using parents’ National Insurance numbers was available, all pupils entitled to pupil premium would have access to it, rather than just those whose parents take the time to make an application,” she says.

A DfE spokesperson said the vast majority of eligible parents still claim free meals, but “we are exploring ideas about the best way to identify disadvantaged pupils automatically in the long term”.

Some local authorities, however, have already taken the matter into their own hands. Over the last three years, Liverpool City Council’s cabinet lead for education, Councillor Jane Corbett, has worked with the benefits service to maximise FSM numbers. By using data already held for people claiming housing and council tax benefit, the council can easily identify those families with school age children entitled to FSM but who haven’t applied.

In Birmingham last May 31% of reception children were claiming. In September that had slipped to 26%

“They then get a letter from us saying they don’t need to do anything in response, but unless they want to opt out, their child will be deemed eligible for free school meals,” explains Corbett. She represents Liverpool’s most deprived ward, and when she took office says she could see at a glance that numbers claiming free meals bore no relation to the local child poverty figures.

The council believes that more than 1,000 FSM awards a year are made as a result of the new system. In addition, more than 940 people have used a live-response online FSM application form that launched last May.

Liverpool is not alone in its determination to get pupil premium to the children who need it. Bolton, a much smaller local authority, decided proactively to identify entitled children through the benefit data it holds.

Benefit application forms and software have been specifically designed to identify eligible children. That information is then made available to heads via a website that is constantly updated.

Crucially, this means Bolton’s headteachers now know exactly which children are entitled to FSM whose parents are not claiming: they can then approach a family, rather than issuing increasingly desperate begging letters.

What is the future for this policy, which is supported in theory by so many, but which has created financial problems for schools? The three main parties have pledged to continue the UIFSM policy. The LibDems and the Conservatives at least are committed to the pupil premium as it stands. If the forthcoming census figures show the expected drop in numbers claiming free meals then, post-election, new ministers may have to consider better ways of ensuring the most deprived children in the country receive the extra funding everyone acknowledges they need.