School leaders urge government to address funding gap as UIFSM grant increase ‘will still leave many schools having to subsidise free infant school meals’

The government has recently announced that the Universal Infant Free School Meals (UIFSM) grant for the 2024-2025 academic year will see a slight increase in funding rates, from £2.53 to £2.58 per eligible meal. However, school leaders have warned schools will still be required to subsidise free infant school meals.

The additional payment will be delivered alongside the final allocation for 2024 to 2025 in June/July 2025. This will be backdated to the start of the academic year, according to the government.

A report from School Food Matters in October titled ‘Cost of a School Meal’ found that the funding rate of £2.53 per school meal was ‘63p below what is needed, making the true cost £3.16’.

The new funding is still 58p below that cost.

Commenting on the announcement, Paul Whiteman, general secretary at school leaders’ union NAHT, said: “While this increase is a step in the right direction, it will still leave many schools having to subsidise free infant school meals from budgets already under considerable pressure after years of real-terms funding cuts under previous governments.

“School Food Matters, which runs food education programmes in schools, has estimated that it now costs £3.16 to provide a hot meal.

“Suppliers may have to pass on increased costs of producing meals and while schools work with them to try and maintain the quality of food provided, school leaders are facing impossible choices about where to cut spending.”

The government also revealed that new policies or funding rates could not be announced during the pre-election period in 2024.

The allocations for the first 2024 to 2025 payments were therefore calculated using the 2023 to 2024 academic year UIFSM funding rate of £2.53.

Paul Whiteman added: “We urge the government to address this situation so that schools are not expected to use their education budget to subsidise school meals.”