Changes to free school meal eligibility…

[AlwaysCoffee25]

”As of April 1st, 2025, the "transitional protection" for free school meals, which allowed continued eligibility even if income increased, will end. New applicants after this date, earning above £7,400 net per annum, will no longer be eligible”

I don’t see the big deal, if you need to reapply you can.

Whilst I think in an ideal world all children should free school meals the reality is we can’t sustain every concession as a county and stopping continued eligibility if your financial circumstances change seems sensible to me 🧐

Although it seems odd timing with free breakfast being introduced (it hasn’t reached my DC’s school) the cynic in me thinks it’s because they know the take up on breakfast will be significantly lower than lunches.

Who can live off £7400

It’s in addition to what you receive in benefits/universal credit, not total household income.

Ah ok thanks - thought it might be but wasn’t sure

The eligibility criteria isn’t changing - it’s just that it will now be means tested, whereas before once you met the criteria your child got FSM permanently thereafter.

Out of interest - what criteria - to be on income support?

To have an “earned” income of less than £7400 per annum after tax and not including any benefits.

Thanks - but what were the criteria before? When I was at school it was to be on income support

In Scotland, you have to reapply every year or you don’t get it. At least, you do in south lanarkshire council. I didn’t know England gave it to you forever if you applied once. That’s very wasteful.

Well, yes, if you’re earning under that then you’re on universal credit. The criteria is to be on universal credit (or another qualifying benefit) and earn under the limit.

Taking a hot meal from children is shameful while accepting thousands of freebies for herself.

Ah thanks ! I’m using the term Incime Support - because tbh in many ways I’m still living in 1988 !

I agree on this, we did a pupil premium (aka free school meals) mentoring scheme , obvs we didn’t say it was because the kids were Pupil premium we just said we were mentoring some of the year, we used the funding to do a trip and get a guest speaker in and did a few one to ones, it was good actually, but one of our y9 pupils parents was like why has my kid been selected are they behind, advanced, naughty, is it a reward, what. And we were like erm, and the mum said is it something to do with being disadvantaged ? And we had to say why we were doing it and they yes it was to target pupil premium kids to ensure they achieve the same as everyone else. And she was like that’s lovely but they were on free school meals for one year whilst she did a nursing degree and received income support and now she earns over £50k a year and she has no idea how to ‘remove’ them from it. She said why don’t people just apply every year and tbh it makes sense. Circumstances change

I think this is a good move because it also will improve the quality of the data that we have about deprived children. The protection was skewing the statistics so that children that were actually now in family's with a higher level of financial means were included in the figures.

£7400 is nothing and it’s probably going to hit single parents. First the pensioners, then the disabled and now the children. The government has been told they are going to push thousands into poverty with their cuts but they don’t seem to care, they’ll get subsidised meals in the Houses of Parliament though. Absolute joke of a government when they take the freebies for themselves whilst axing everything.

Seems sensible to me.

Universal credit claimants must declare any changes to their income, why shouldn't all benefits be the same? They're not taking them away from people who need them.

It’s the same now as before. I don’t know what it was historically.

Anyone know how this is going to impact schools funding ie. Pupil premium? Seems very concerning if they are changing that too.

But on the other hand many other children won’t qualify, ever. So what’s the difference, absolutely children who NEED it should get it but this is about withdrawing the support when it’s no longer needed.

This sucks. The criteria used to be earning less than 16k then they changed it to 7.4k, which is less than 10 hours a week minimum wage so basically applies to barely anyone especially if they check it every year.

Would be better to do away with everyone having free meals in ks1 and then raise it back up to 16k.
Just my opinion

@Scrubberdubber i didn’t realise the criteria had changed - is that because other benefits aren’t taken into account that previously were?

I don’t think it was permanent- just 6 years after

I may be missing something but what is the problem with that? People's income and circumstances can change a lot between their children starting reception and them being in year 6. Personally I think that school meals should be free for all pupils in state primary school as they are in London, but if they are means tested it should be that the people that need it most at any given time should be the ones getting it, not those who may have formerly been on hard times half a decade ago.

On the old benefits as long as you earned less than 16k you were eligible with new benefit universal credit they changed it to 7.4k

So basically more than halved it without anyone noticing really

There's quite a lot of misinformation on this post.

Free school meals and pupil premium criteria are slightly different. Free school meals are means tested and as pp said, you can only earn barely anything before you're eligible.

Pupil premium is the children for whom there has been a disadvantage ie were on Free school meals for a time. They are counted in pupil premium numbers so the school has access to extra funding to help them. It doesn't mean they are allowed Free school meals forever but they are allocated some funding for school.

This will have a direct impact on school budgets but not immediately.

The lowered income amount really means that there will be less and less children eligible. It doesn't mean they aren't in poverty though or don't need the help.

The idea from the government is to stop people using benefits to live and that they'll get high enough paying jobs. If it was that simple then you wouldn't have 1000s of people who work and also have universal credits.

Both my children enjoyed free meals in infants and I thought it was a terrible policy. I would much rather have paid for the meals and had the money spent on other areas where the school was in desperate need of funding.