In January pupils in Primary 5 became the latest year group to benefit from the Scottish government’s policy to ultimately provide free school meals to all primary pupils.
The policy has been welcomed by anti-poverty campaigners and has led to big leaps in the number of pupils benefiting from free meals.
However, it has also proven controversial, given the government’s failure to roll out free meals to pupils in the final two years of primary by August as initally promised.
Now new official Scottish Healthy Living survey figures show that, although all pupils from P1 to P5 are entitled to free school meals, just 68.4 per cent of them are actually taking up the offer, prompting calls for the government to investigate potential barriers to uptake, including the capacity of schools to meet demand and the quality of the food on offer.
Figures on free school meal uptake were not recorded last year because of the Covid-19 pandemic. But in 2020, 75.7 per cent of P1 to P3 pupils - who at that time were the cohort entitled to universal free meals - took a free school lunch, and in 2016 and 2017 over 80 per cent of P1-3s did.
The government analysis of the new figures states: “Although the overall percentage of pupils in primary school that were present and took a meal increased slightly, the proportion present and taking a meal decreased in universally entitled stages (P1-P3 in 2020, P1-P5 in 2022) and also in the non-universally entitled stages (P4-P7 in 2020 and P6 and P7 in 2022).”
Improving uptake of free school meals
The figures also show that uptake varies hugely between local authorities. In East Renfrewshire, almost 90 per cent of P1-5 pupils took up the universal free school meals offer (88.9 per cent), but in Clackmannanshire only just over half did (54.3 per cent).
Free school meal uptake is also down in secondary schools. In 2020 70.9 per cent of pupils registered for free meals were present and taking a free meal on census day. However, when the survey was conducted in February of this year, that figure had dropped by around 10 percentage points to 59.5 per cent.
Uptake of free school meals is highest in special schools, but again this fell between 2020 and this year. In 2020 86.8 per cent of those entitled to free meals in special schools took up the offer, but this year 73.7 per cent did.
Earlier this year Professor John McKendrick, of the Scottish Poverty and Inequality Research Unit at Glasgow Caledonian University, called for secondaries to listen to feedback on school food to ensure that free school meals provision was effective.
He found that the proportion of secondary school students in Scotland typically taking a school meal ranged from 9 per cent to 75 per cent, depending on the school.
The government figures published today show that uptake of free meals in secondary varies from over 80 per cent in Argyll and Bute to less than 50 per cent in Aberdeen City, East Ayrshire, Fife, Moray, Orkney and Stirling.
The closeness of other food outlets to schools had a bearing on school meal uptake, said Professor McKendrick, but other important factors when it came to pupils’ decisions about whether or not to have a school meal included: the school dining environment, the length of queues and of the lunch break, the information available about what was on offer, and the quality of the food.
Responding to the figures today, John Dickie, director of Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland, welcomed the planned rollout of universal free school meals in primary and called on the government to press ahead with its pledge so P6 and P7 pupils could start to benefit.
After Mr Dickie made his comment the Scottish government published its Programme for Government for 2022-23, which states: “Subject to agreement with [local authorities body] Cosla, [we will] begin to roll out the provision of universal free school meals to Primary 6 and Primary 7 pupils, and take further action to reduce the cost of the school day for families, including reducing the cost of school uniforms through new guidance.”
Mr Dickie added that schools, councils and the Scottish government needed to investigate any barriers to uptake.
He said: “We have really positive testimony from parents taking up the free school meals offer. They say that it really does make a difference, taking pressure off family budgets and making life that bit easier, as well as breaking down the barriers between those who are entitled and those who are not entitled to free school meals.
“Now significantly more children are benefiting from a healthy school meal during the school day as a result of moving to universal provision.
“However, it is clearly important that we understand what the barriers are standing between a child and that healthy meal, and addressing issues of capacity and quality should be part of that.”
Overall the School Healthy Living Survey statistics for 2022 show that the number of pupils registered for free meals increased by almost 100,000 between 2020 and 2022, going from 263,646 to 362,121. Now 51.9 per cent of the school roll is registered for free school meals, up from 38.1 per cent in 2020.
A Scottish government spokesperson said: “These statistics show a record 215,053 children took a free school meal, up 16.5 per cent compared to two years ago.
“At the time the survey was undertaken, the provision of catering in schools continued to be affected by Covid-19.”
