Free School Meals on £32k salary

[icecube12345]

I'm a divorced father of two children in KS1 + KS2.

Share exactly 50/50 custody.

Due to various reasons, my ex gets double the CMS calculated CM payments plus additional spousal maintenance. In total, she'd need a job paying about £33k/year for the equivalent net income.

AIBU to think that it's morally wrong that my eldest in KS2 qualifies for free school meals when his parents have significantly more income than the vast majority? I hope not to make use of the free meals as I don't agree with it, but I'm shocked he qualifies.

@christinarossetti19

Funny enough I'd not even thought of my child being disadvantaged until someone mentioned it here.

No, I just felt annoyed that we constantly see things in the news (especially recently) where the government etc claim there's not enough money to provide free school meals for the children who need it over summer/half term etc, and then for my child to be offered one just feels like a very broken system, and feels like we're an edge case where we don't need it, how many edge cases are there where for some quirk they don't qualify - because they are £1 over the threshold or something.

and I felt it was wrong that the system allowed us to claim it.

“Us” didn’t claim it though. It’s based on your ex wife’s household income. If it was based on your combined incomes your DS wouldn’t be entitled as you clearly earn very well. So this is nothing more than a very thinly veiled dig at the audacity of your ex in claiming something you think she shouldn’t be entitled to because you support her so well.

We see you.

Totally inaccurate title. I used to earn c£16k when I first split from my ex, and wasn’t entitled to free school meals for my kids.

@Smallsteps88

I don't believe she claimed it, she seemed as surprised as I did. So that's simply not true.

@Cloverforever

Exactly my point. How is that fair?

It can get unfair but not sure how they get around it.

Take the dress meals as this benefits the school
Just give generous donations to all fund raising events

Op you must be earning a considerable wage to be paying spousal maintenance as it is very rarely applied to divorce these days.

Apart from the 50/50 contact split, the double child support (as if) and the spousal maintenance, you sound exactly like my ex son in law. He would definitely care about this sort of thing because he's a controlling arsehole.

@knittingaddict

Hmmm

So we agreed out of court to protect our savings from stupid solicitor fees, so it wasn't "applied" it was agreed between us.

I absolutely do pay double CM.

What I'm most upset about is how stupid I must have been because quite literally no one believes me!

Do you realise that the DWP are being sued by mothers for their sheer fucking incompetence at collecting in monies owed by feckless NRP?

Currently owed by NRP £354 million, only 10% has been clawed back.

So although you may be paying, this is why free school meals happen. I am glad that there is now a push for FSM to be provided over the summer holidays which is the hardest time for parents to try to feed their children.

Pupil Premium is due to the perceived disadvantage of children in receipt of FSM. The gap for GCSEs is something like 49% of non-disadvantaged children achieve 5 GCSEs grade 9-5 including English and maths compared to just 29% of disadvantaged children. That is one hell of a gap. Pupil premium has been going for years and yet that gap is not really closing.

@OnTheBenchOfDoom

That's insane.

The scandal, as CocoMarine points out up thread is that NRP fathers as a cohort are so unreliable in supporting their children that their minimal mandated contributions have to be discounted.

So if you are concerned about tax payers money, or lack of support from so many fathers your time might be better spent campaigning amongst men to support their children.

Rather than telling a predominantly woman's forum how great you are for paying more than the mandated minimum and bashing the FSM system for a fault which can only be remedied by men.

You certainly have to tick a box at least if not fill in a form to get free school meals.

@Cocomarine the yikes was about it being an aggressive message (which I totally get BTW). I also think people are being needlessly harsh towards the OP when it seems like he and his ex wife genuinely didn’t know how the system works. Sounds like a lot of posters are targeting their frustration towards him when they can’t really indict the system on a personal level.

@C8H10N4O2

Maybe a solution would be whereby both parents have to state how much CM they have paid and received each year. This would help to ensure that in instances where it wasn't being paid, action could be taken (additional support etc), and where it was being paid, people weren't receiving benefits they did not need.

Clearly, no system will be perfect, and will always have issues, but given the scale of the problem with paying parents not paying, there must be a better way to track this.

Think you need to get this situation sorted out

Have a conversation with a lawyer and see what your options are, if you’re doing 50/50, then you’re getting a very poor deal indeed and this is going to go on for years and years

YANBU.

My sisters children qualify for free school meals and she has never claimed them.

I think those who really do need them should absolutely avail off them. But for those who could afford to manage without them, should provide their own lunch.

@ulanbatorismynextstop

All children of that age get free school meals regardless of family earnings.

And this is where the system is flawed.

Everything Cocomarine said.

Also as others have said the school gets additional funding if your son gets fsm.

Plus why would you begrudge your child food?

If you have 50/50 care no one is getting maintenance.

You do know why child maintenance isn't counted for things like benefits...don't you?

@nevernotstruggling

Oh yes they are!

OP, you say child care is 50/50, so the child maintenance would be set at zero. Double zero is zero, so what is the amount you have said is double child maintenance based on?

Then that might be a more pressing issue.

In the mean time not it's bloody morally right that the child is entitled according to an income assessment that I assume means it's mother and resident carer qualifies for income support/working tax credits.

Cma isn't counted because it isn't taxable and isn't guaranteed!!!!

[quote icecube12345]@C8H10N4O2

Maybe a solution would be whereby both parents have to state how much CM they have paid and received each year. This would help to ensure that in instances where it wasn't being paid, action could be taken (additional support etc), and where it was being paid, people weren't receiving benefits they did not need.

Clearly, no system will be perfect, and will always have issues, but given the scale of the problem with paying parents not paying, there must be a better way to track this.[/quote]
The problem with that is the cost of administering it. Who's going to conduct these annual checks? Design and send out the forms, in translation where necessary, chase parents who miss the deadline, then process them, and assess need? Who's going to find the team of assessors who will look at exercise of discretion where there has been a 'good' past year but the parent has just stopped paying this last month due to unforeseen circumstances? Will there be administrators or assessors to deal with a mid-year application? Where are the legal team who need to be paid to deal with the appeals and judicial reviews arising if a decision is wrongly made. What penalty attaches to failure to do your annual FSM return, given that it can't realistically be ending the food for the children?

The sheer cost of administering such a system means it is likely to be cheaper to absorb the relatively trivial cost of a few extra children getting a meal.