Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will change the conditions on which Universal Infant Free School Meal grants are made to ensure that the grants are expended solely on improving the quality of school meals to meet their child obesity targets.

Universal Infant Free School Meals (UIFSM) are funded through a direct grant to schools. To recognise the pressures facing schools, the Department announced an £18 million increase to the per-pupil funding rate for UIFSM to support with costs around food, transport and staff wages.

UIFSM helps to improve children’s education, boost their health and save parents around £400 a year. There are no plans to change the conditions in which these grants are made. The Department is continuing to review funding in order to ensure that schools continue to be able to provide healthy and nutritious meals in school. The funding for the free school meal (FSM) factor is increasing in line with the latest available GDP deflator forecast when the New Funding Formula (NFF) was published in July 2022.

Schools receive their provisional allocations for UIFSM in June based on the final allocation of the previous academic year. Schools receive a subsequent allocation of revenue funding in early summer, adjusted either up or down to reflect actual number of meals taken. This is calculated using an average taken from the October and January Censuses.

Local Authorities can decide whether they should top up the UIFSM allocation from their general maintenance and improvement budgets in the light of local circumstances, as they would do in any other year.