More than a fifth of pupils in Glasgow benefited from free school meals being served during the summer holidays this year, a new report has revealed.

The Children’s Holiday Food Programme, funded by Glasgow City Council and delivered by charities, third-sector organisations and community groups, fed more than 14,500 children during the seven-week school summer holidays.

Funding totalling £863,360 was given to 97 organisations across the city that had already been delivering holiday programmes, to expand their usual activities to include food and spaces that allowed more children to attend.

A report to a council committee showed that, during the school summer holidays, 14,674 nursery, primary and secondary schoolchildren received 131,508 healthy meals and snacks. The latest Scottish government census puts the total number of pupils being educated in Glasgow schools at 67,870, meaning about 20 per cent of the city’s pupils benefited from the scheme.

But one of the biggest challenges cited by the organisations that took part in the scheme was meeting the demand. Some organisations had to cap the number of children who could attend and redirected others to alternative holiday schemes due to the “high volume” of candidates.

Focus on fun activities

The report said that “the fund delivered food in a dignified way” because the focus was on fun summer activities rather than food.

It stated: “Organisations felt that it helped reduce the stigma around food poverty during the school holiday, as the fund was universal to all children. This allowed children to be treated and seen as equals.”

The report continued: “One of the biggest challenges [in terms of project delivery] was having a high volume of children attending - a large number being unexpected. This meant that organisations had to recruit additional staff and volunteers, adjust rotas/staffing ratios and reorganise groups accordingly. In some cases, they had to cap the numbers of children attending and signpost them to other projects and organisations.”

Holiday hunger is an issue that has come to the fore in recent years, as attention has been drawn to the struggle that some families face when the long summer break begins and access to free school meals ends.

Academics have claimed that the attainment gap between rich and poor “could actually be driven by the summer period”.

This summer, a number of Scottish councils ran schemes in a bid to ensure all children had access to nutritious food. North Lanarkshire Council hit the headlines when it committed to delivering free meals for schoolchildren every day, including weekends and Christmas Day, by April next year.

One school that served free food over the holidays in Glasgow was Dalmarnock Primary in the city’s east end. The school is part of the Food, Families, Futures programme, launched by charity Children in Scotland in 2015 to tackle food poverty and its knock-on effects on education and health.

This year, the club ran as a drop-in for four days per week over four weeks, with between 70-85 children and adults attending on a typical day.

The Glasgow evaluation found that the main benefits of its scheme for families were financial and social because food and activities were provided for free. These findings were also backed up by an NHS evaluation that found the holiday food programme reduced the risk of children going without food during the school holidays, and helped lessen the worries that parents and carers had about feeding their children over the holiday period.

There was also “a feeling of communities coming together”, says the evaluation.

It added: “This fund has helped to build equality and relationships within the community.”

Allan Gow, Glasgow City Council’s treasurer, said work was underway to make funding available for the mid-term holidays in February, as well as looking ahead to next Easter

He added: “Feeding your family over the holidays is a very real worry for many in the city. This programme has not only helped to alleviate food poverty, but it also reduces the [stigmatisation due to it] being inclusive to all of the city’s children.”

The programme was also run successfully over the October week holiday, with about 6,000 children benefiting.