The delivery date for universal free school meals in Scottish primary schools - originally due to be in place by August 2022 - remains unclear after today’s 2024-25 Budget.
While free school meals are available to all children in the first five years of primary school, plans to bring the same entitlement to P6-7 pupils have repeatedly been delayed.
In September, the Programme for Government suggested that free school meals would be offered to all pupils from 2026, although it was unclear if this would be before or after the parliamentary elections due to take place in May that year.
Today’s Budget document makes no mention of when free school meals will become available to all P6-7s. Instead, it merely indicates that P6-7s who receive the Scottish Child Payment (which has not risen today by as much as anti-poverty groups hoped) will receive free school meals from February 2025.
It states that this group of P6-7s will be “targeted” in the “next phase” of expanding the free school meals policy. To make this happen, there will be ”£43 million of necessary capital investment to expand facilities and provision [that will] begin during 2024-25”.
However, deputy first minister and finance secretary Shona Robison did confirm today that local authorities will be provided with £1.5 million to wipe out pupils’ existing school-meal debt.
“Due to Westminster mismanagement of our economy, too many households are worrying about debt,” Ms Robison said in the Scottish Parliament this afternoon.
“With our limited powers, there is only so much we can do. However, where we can step in, we will.
“That is why I am pleased to confirm we will provide local authorities with £1.5 million to cancel school meal debt, removing a worry hanging over families up and down the country who are struggling to make ends meet.”
The biggest headline from today’s Budget was that a new tax band will be created in Scotland, Ms Robison also announced.
The band will be set at 45 per cent and placed on those earning more than £75,225. For context, from 1 January, headteachers and depute heads in Scotland will be above that threshold at point 9 on their 19-point pay scale (a salary of £76,206).
Meanwhile, the top rate of tax, levied against those earning more than £125,000, will rise by 1 per cent next year to 48 per cent. After the Scottish teacher pay deal agreed in March, from 1 January the maximum headteacher salary in Scotland’s state schools will be £110,808.
In other areas of tax, the three lowest rates will see no increase to their rates while the starter and basic rate bands will increase by the level of inflation.
The tax changes will bring in another £1.5 billion to Scotland’s finances next year, Ms Robison said.
She also announced that the Scottish government would fully fund its proposed council-tax freeze.
Ms Robison said the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) projection for inflation next year was 3 per cent, but she wanted to “go further than that”.
“That’s why I will fund an above-inflation 5 per cent council tax freeze - delivering over £140 million of additional investment for local services,” she said.
Councils have been sceptical, however, and there have been warnings that unless every council receives extra money to the value of their planned increase, service users will suffer.
Ms Robison also said: “We will continue to provide £145.5 million to councils to maintain teachers in the system and enable councils to offer permanent contracts to our education workforce.”
Today’s Budget also sets out details of “continued investment in early learning and childcare (ELC)”.
The government states that it will “ensure those delivering high-quality funded ELC in private, voluntary, and independent settings are paid at least £12 per hour”.
EIS teaching union general secretary Andrea Bradley said: “Allocating funding for the cancellation of school meals debt is a very positive step, although it is disappointing that there is no mention of further extending free-meal entitlement to older pupils at a time when food costs remain high and hundreds of thousands of children in Scotland are not able to eat often enough or healthily enough.”
She added: “The funding to employ more teachers on permanent contracts is welcome, but this must actually lead to there being additional, permanently employed teachers in our schools.
“Teacher numbers have fallen across Scotland in each of the last two years, and the numbers of teachers on temporary contracts remain high, despite a Scottish government pledge to recruit 3,500 additional teachers across the country by 2026 and to reduce teacher class-contact time by so doing.”
Ms Bradley also said that councils would have “legitimate concerns” that education would “impacted by the decision to freeze council tax again this year”.
