More than 1 in 5 children eligible for free school meals don't take up the offer.
Parents struggling to make ends meet in cost of living crisis have been told their children can have free school meals without facing any social stigma amid concerns that increasingly large numbers of those eligible will not take up the support.
North Yorkshire County Council’s director of children’s services, Stuart Carlton, says the authority is talking to both parents and schools as part of a drive to improve the 78 per cent take-up from those entitled to free school meals.
22 percent of pupils entitled to free school meals in North Yorkshire don't take up the offer.
Now the county council is launching an effort to increase the take up.
Director of children's services - Stuart Carlton - is encouraging all eligible families to use the free school meal provision as well as other support programs.
A meeting of the authority’s executive heard concerns were mounting over the rate of take-up particularly due to the number of those eligible for the meals being set to significantly increase in the coming months as inflation and soaring energy bills leave family budgets increasingly stretched.
Ripon Ure Bank and Spa division councillor Barbara Brodigan questioned what the authority was doing to find out the reasons behind more than one in five of eligible children’s parents not accepting free school meals.
She also pressed the council’s leadership about what was being done to encourage take-up and what support was being offered to those just outside the criteria to qualify.
The council’s executive member for education, Councillor Annabel Wilkinson, said the 15.4 per cent of pupils already eligible for free school meals was forecast to rise due to the cost of living crisis.
She said:
“We have recognised that there have been some barriers and sticking points in the application process and we have addressed those to make it easier for people to apply and been promoting that extensively.
“As schools go back I’m sure that they will encourage that because obviously they get the pupil premium from people that receive free school meals.”
Councillor Wilkinson said the council was also offering other support, such as its Local Assistance Fund, to those facing financial difficulty and had also simplified the process for applying for free school meals.
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