Impact case study database

Unmet need

One of the main causes of childhood obesity is an unhealthy diet, and since obesity has been found to track from adolescence to adulthood, improving children’s diets is crucial. However, a major barrier to healthy eating is cost. As stated in the SFP, the main reason that parents chose a packed lunch over a school meal was the expense: an average school meal cost £2 whereas a packed lunch can cost less than 50p. Therefore, improving the quality of a school meal and making it free to those who most need it is crucial to tackling childhood obesity and the consequent risk of lifelong obesity.

Impact on Government policy: free school meals for infants

The best way to ensure that children eat a healthy school meal is to provide these for free. As highlighted in the SFP, increasing take-up of school meals also offers financial benefits to the school via economies of scale. Providing a nutritious meal at school also normalises healthy eating and helps to establish this as a lifelong habit.

The SFP recommends on pages 12 and 127 that “Government should embark upon a phased roll out of free school meals for all children in all primary schools.” As a result, the Department for Education announced in September 2013 that all infant school pupils (4-7 year olds in Key Stage 1) in state-funded schools in England would be eligible for a free school meal from September 2014 (EV3). To aid implementation, the Government provided online guidance (EV4) for local authorities and schools, which links to advice on the SFP website. Although UIFSM was threatened during the November 2015 Spending Review, the clear benefits it offered resulted in its continuation (EV5). Similarly, the Government continued to fund schools to cover UIFSM in term time during the COVID-19 pandemic (EV6).

Impact on improving children’s diets via the School Food Standards

As well as being free for pupils, it is important that school dinners are good quality and nutritious. One of the key actions given in the SFP was the simplification of food-based standards for all schools. This is discussed in Chapter 8 (pages 90-99), which states the steps required to implement these standards and assigns responsibility to the Department for Education. The approach to revising the standards is given in Appendix B (pages 141-145) and provides a guide to portion size and frequency. These standards directly informed the Government legislative document “Requirements for School Food Regulations” (EV7) which was laid before Parliament in June 2014 and came into force in January 2015. Compliance with School Food Standards is mandatory for all maintained schools and applies to pupils of all ages.

The 2014 legislation fed into a July 2016 Department for Education document “School Food in England” (EV8) which sets out how legislation applies to food provided within schools in England. The document also links to the SFP website and the practical advice available there, stating: “The School Food Plan website draws together best practice and organisations that can support schools and the sector.” Although the advice in the document mainly concerns the revised School Food Standards, it also emphasises that every infant is now entitled to a free school meal (pages 4 and 5).

Uptake and impact of free school meals and school food standards

In 2013, uptake of school meals was only 43% (EV9) although this was rising. In 2015/16 it had increased to 76%, decreasing slightly the following year but then rising again to 80% in 2018/19 (EV10).

A large-scale independent review of UIFSM in 2018 (EV11) included 10 case study visits to schools, surveys of 327 schools and over 500 parents and 17 qualitative interviews with suppliers. The key findings were: 1) all local authorities reported take-up rates of over 72%; 2) 89% of caterers ensured children were served a balanced meal; and 3) 41% of school leaders reported a general increase of healthy eating as a direct result of UIFSM. UIFSM also allowed substantial financial savings, with parents reporting a median weekly saving of £10. In addition, parents reported that free school meals not only removed the stigma of claiming free meals but also saved nearly an hour of meal preparation time, allowing them to spend longer with their family.

Summary

The 2013 School Food Plan, informed throughout by Newcastle research and expertise, is a set of practical steps for Government, local authorities and schools to improve school food. This led to two initiatives: the 2014 introduction of universal free school meals for infants and the 2015 revision of the School Food Standards. These schemes are helping to improve children’s diets and contribute towards reducing the obesity epidemic.