Council support extended for low-income Haringey families during summer holidays

Eligible children can receive vouchers worth £15 per week from the council over the summer break, reports Joe Ives, Local Democracy Reporter

Pupils eligible for free school meals can access extra help this summer after Haringey Council tripled the budget for its holiday support scheme.

Last week Jo Kuper, the council’s cabinet member for tackling inequality and resident services, signed off a decision to extend funding for out-of-term support during the summer holidays, lasting until Tuesday, 1st September.

It means eligible pupils can receive vouchers worth £15 per week from the council over the summer break, which starts this Tuesday (21st) for Haringey’s state-run schools.

In March, the outgoing Labour administration at the council set aside £450,000 for eligible pupils to receive the vouchers through this year’s Easter and May school holidays.

The new Green Party-led administration, which took power following the local election in May, has now decided to continue the council’s support through to the start of the new school year in September.

However, Cllr Kuper’s decision will cost the council “an estimated additional” sum of £966,000.

It is set to take local authority spending on the scheme to more than £1.4million in total for the 2026/27 financial year – an increase of nearly 215%.

The council says the decision will provide much-needed support over the summer and represents “the maximum extension for blanket provision” of the support scheme. The spending increase, the local authority argues, balances a need to comply with government guidance while fulfilling the council’s duty ”to support those in crisis”.

Due to a shift in government policy, from September onwards councils will have to adjust how they support pupils eligible for free school meals outside of term time.

Haringey Council says it is “currently evaluating its approach to holiday support from the 2026/27 academic year onwards” in a bid to “move to a more targeted approach”.

It is a result of the new ‘Crisis and Resilience Fund’ (CRF) launched by the Department for Work and Pensions, with Haringey Council receiving a total allocation of just over £5.9m for the current financial year.

The CRF, which has a scope well-beyond free school meals support, replaces previous government funding issued to councils through the Household Support Fund and discretionary housing payments. Councils are responsible for how they allocate the funding and have the option to carry over unspent money into the next financial year.

All CRF funding must be spent by 31st March 2029, which is the end date for the three-year scheme. Given the state of local authority finances across the country – and Haringey especially – there is very little risk any of the money will go unused.

Some of the CRF’s objectives, like creating a “better connected local welfare landscape” have been outlined using the kind of dense corporate-speak that would befit even the most ineloquent LinkedIn post.

According to the government, the overarching goal of the fund is to help local authorities “support low-income households who encounter a financial shock and to support activity that builds individual and community financial resilience”.

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