to wonder if there's some conspiracy surrounding 'free' school meals?

[sevenkeystomysoul]

DD is going into reception in September and I have been sent a free school meals application form. On the front of the form it says your child is entitled to free school meals if you receive 'Child Tax Credit and an annual income less than £16,190'. OK, that's me. But on the reverse of the form, you need to tick a box, and suddenly there is a codicil, 'provided you are not entitled to Working Tax Credit'. Well, I work, so I receive CTC and WTC, but my annual income is still less than £16,190.

I have called the school, the local council and a national number so far, and NOBODY has been able to help me . It's like a big black information hole surrounding this issue. AIBU to suspect it's a government conspiracy to ensure all low-income children exist on Fruit Shoots and Greggs sausage rolls?

My partner has recently gone self-employed. MOney wise we are about £10 worse off a week as he is not really earning more then he needs to reinvest in the business. When you take into account the benefit side we are losing £40 a week, 2 dc's free meals, healthy start vouchers and clothing grants.
Like Ishani says sometimes you are better not working at all

Happyin herts-no, you can't get HB to pay your mortgage, just to help towards your rent.

You can get get interest only mortgages of up to £200k paid whilst on IS and JSA for 2 years and forever on IS.

I am pretty sure that you have to wait 9 months before you can get anything to pay any kind of mortgage on JSA or IS Ishani, or has that changed?

I would assume that anyone with a mortgage would not have the funds to pay their mortgage for 9 months until the help kicks in, so would be forced to sell long before then.

Nope, 13 weeks.

OP this is my understanding of the situation (my friend went through this last year and we spent hours checking and double checking)
if you get wtc and ctc, add you wages to this add your child benefit, add to that any other benefit and income, it will come to about three pounds over the stated amount!

do you get healthy start vouchers? if you get them you will get school meals if not then you won't.
hope this helps

Tis the same rule for healthy start vouchers. We are finally entitled to them as DH can no longer work and we wont get WTC until I find a job.

Ooh, how do you get healthy start vouchers? (I get wtc and ctc, and am single parent.)

I was told by another mum that the nos. of children having free school meals is used as part of a calculation to determin whether the school is in a deprived area. If it is deprived the school get additional funds the higher they score on the calculation.

I'm not explaining this very well!

"Is there housing benefit for your own mortgage" was a rhetorical question to whoever said you'd be better off not working. I wouldn't because no one is going to pay my mortgage, are they?

I cant for the life of me see why some families with an income of under £16K can qualify for lots of help while others don't. It is actually discrimination and I'm surprised has not been questioned legally. Either every family with income under £16K gets FSM plus associated benefits or no family does, kind of thing. I just can't see how or why this allowed to happen

IME, and we've probably covered every damn combination there is over the years, you get much less TC (in total) if you aren't working than if you are but are on a low income.

So even though it might seem your incomes are the same, they probably aren't.

so the loss of : £30 per week EMA, £10 free school meals, help with school trips, help with music lessons for a starter plus cost of travel to work means that low income families have more???????

northernrock I got sent a letter when DH stopped receiving WTC (he's got a prolapsed disc, been off since sept) - but there should be leaflets in the gp surgery. I don't think you'll get them if you get any WTC :( worth a look though as there's other stipulations IIRC.

Thanks Freudian. I will check. I have no pride when it comes to free grub!

Also, Healthy Start are only for Under 5s and pregnant women - which may not apply since we're talking free school meals in the first place here.