Cost of funding universal free school meals in Haringey ‘too expensive’

Haringey councillors have agreed measures to tackle child poverty but were unable to commit to funding universal free school meals because of the high cost.

Cabinet members pledged to make alleviating poverty a key priority for the council and work with schools and other partners to help those who are experiencing hardship as families face mounting pressure from the cost-of-living crisis.

Measures include providing permanent funding for youth programmes and services to create opportunities for children from lower-income families, reducing school costs, and helping to ensure school meals are of high quality and nutritional value.

But senior councillors were unable to commit to providing a free school meal for every child, as Tower Hamlets Council has done, because it would cost an extra £5million per year. It comes after Haringey Council revealed it was forecast to spend £16m more than expected during the current financial year as a result of economic pressures and the ongoing effects of Covid-19.

Haringey is the fourth-most deprived borough in London, with a child poverty rate of 42% based on income after housing costs. The council set up a scrutiny review to consider the most effective ways of responding to the challenges presented by child poverty and how to develop a co-ordinated approach to the issue. This included a review of measures being taken to reduce poverty in Tower Hamlets.

Speaking during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Makbule Gunes, chair of the council’s children and young people’s scrutiny panel, thanked cabinet members for agreeing ten out of eleven recommendations made by the review.

Cabinet members only partially agreed a recommendation to make free school meals universal and provide funding for their provision during school holidays. The council already funds free school meals for around 650 children between the ages of seven and eleven, but cabinet members said a “budget stream” would need to be identified to extend this further.

Cllr Gunes said the scrutiny panel had felt “really strongly” about the issue after hearing testimonies about the “positive impact” of introducing universal free school meals in Tower Hamlets.

Zena Brabazon, cabinet member for children, schools and families, told the meeting it was “vital” for the council to do all it can to meet people’s needs but said that, like most authorities across the country, it did not have the money to extend the free school meals programme further.

She added that cabinet members supported the principle of universal free school meals and were lobbying for funding. Cllr Brabazon has written to the government urging it to fund free school meals for all primary school children.