Official Report 175KB pdf
Provision of School Lunches (Disapplication of the Requirement to Charge) (Scotland) Order 2008 (Draft)
Good morning. I open the 27th meeting of the Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee in 2008. I remind all those present that mobile phones and BlackBerrys should be switched off for the duration of the meeting.
Scottish Borders Council has started to consider the amount of money that is available to cover free school meal eligibility under the settlement, including the amount for the following year. There is not full clarity about the extent to which eligibility will shift upwards. We need to work out exactly how many extra pupils will be eligible.
We have not gone through our budget process for next year yet. Subject to successful passage of the legislation, Aberdeen City Council will be extending free school meal entitlement to all primary and secondary school pupils and families in receipt of the maximum child tax credit and working tax credit from August 2009.
Councillor West, I am not sure whether you know that the changes that will be introduced in August will not need legislation. The legislation that the Government has proposed that we are considering today will apply only to primary 1 to 3 children and not beyond.
We are currently in the middle of our budget process. As you know, Inverclyde Council was not part of the pilot, but we have considered our position in respect of P1 to P3 pupils.
My answer is straightforward. East Ayrshire Council has considered the extension to those in receipt of tax credit, which will allow more children to qualify for free school meals. That will be built into the budget exercise. Likewise, we are familiar with the costs that might arise from the extension of free school meals to children in primary 1 to 3.
I have a question specifically for Councillor West. You said that Aberdeen City Council would implement the concordat agreement, but your written submission to the committee says that the council would prefer to offer breakfasts through a network of breakfast clubs. Is the council's policy to offer breakfast as the free meal, or will it offer a meal in the middle of the day?
The council would ideally like to provide a free school breakfast and lunch. For that, we would like to use funding from the Scottish Government, private enterprise and the council itself.
Are you confident that the council will have sufficient money to do both?
Yes.
It is interesting that some of the submissions appear to be diametrically opposed to the others. For example, East Ayrshire Council welcomes the proposals and
As I said earlier, we were not involved in the pilot but I read the evaluation. The council was pleased to see positive outcomes on uptake. I am sorry if our submission came across as doom and gloom, because it was not intended to be like that. Before I respond in detail, I reaffirm our commitment to implementing the policy, particularly if it is to be a legislative requirement on the council.
I understand your concerns about inflation, but it looks like inflation will decline substantially. I am sure that you accept that the predictions for inflation next August, when the policy must be rolled out, are significantly below the Government's 2 per cent target, so you may be in a much healthier financial position than you currently are with inflation at 5 per cent.
You have certainly got it right. My apologies for the arithmetic; the sums were not mine. I think that 17 per cent is the correct figure. The calculation assumes that a child eats three meals a day every day of the year and takes the 190 days a year on which the child will be at school and assumes that they will eat one meal a day—the lunch-time meal—there. That accounts for the difference. The percentage is 17 per cent; 6 per cent is not accurate.
Aye. So you do not think that it is tokenism, then.
No, I do not.
Okay—that is fine.
A rough calculation is that we would be expected to find £4 million out of the £9.5 million.
Why is the education budget taking such a big savings hit? Is it because it forms a large proportion of the budget?
It is because of the proportion of Inverclyde Council's budget that education forms.
Councillor West, will you clarify an answer that you gave the convener? Are you saying that, in an ideal world, Aberdeen City Council would like to extend its breakfast provision, which involves 29 breakfast clubs, as well as provide free school meals for all primary 1 to 3 children?
Yes. Aberdeen City Council provides 29 breakfast clubs for 885 pupils. Ideally, we would like to provide free school breakfasts and free school lunches. I stress that we would use funding from the Government, private enterprise and the council.
I will pursue private enterprise involvement in a minute.
The submission contains officer recommendations and is an officer report. I am here to present the council's policy position.
I appreciate your anecdote, which I am sure is true for many individuals. However, I am trying to get at Aberdeen City Council's policy. You say that, in an ideal world, you would like to extend the provision of breakfast and lunch, but the council also says that it is not convinced of the merits of that. Given that budgets are extremely tight, as we have heard from Inverclyde Council, are you convinced that that policy strategy helps the children who are most in need?
As I said, the submission is an officer report. I am here to present the policy position.
I am asking you as the leader with responsibility for education whether you are convinced that the strategy is right.
I am convinced that targeting will create inequalities among groups of children. That would not be fair. The approach must be across the board.
How will you finance that?
It is difficult for me to project the budget in 2010-11, when most of the costs will kick in, but the council has worked hard to stabilise the budget and I am convinced that it will be back on a firm financial footing following the next budget round. Council officers are factoring free school meals into the projections for the 2010-11 budget.
How does private enterprise fit into that?
Involving private enterprise is an option that we would really like to consider, particularly in relation to breakfasts.
How would that work?
The arrangement has worked in other local authority areas where private enterprise has been involved. At the moment, that is an idea—it is not fully worked up. Once it is fully worked up, I will be more than happy to provide the committee with details.
The point is important, because we are near decision time on the matter. As I said, budgets are incredibly tight. Parents are waiting to find out some of the answers. I do not disagree with the principle of involving private enterprise, but we must be firm about the amount of money that will be available. We have set resources. The council has projected the number of children who will be involved. There is—dare I say it?—a moral responsibility to say a bit more about how any such provision would work. That is an important theme. With an extremely tight budget, as I said, the council faces an ethical dilemma about whether to proceed with the policy on a universal basis or whether it would be better to target the children who are most in need.
On your first point, on involving private enterprise, once we have the detail I will be more than happy to provide it to the committee, as I said, but I do not have it at present. On your point about whether the provision should be universal or targeted, I feel that targeting would create inequalities. Aberdeen City Council will continue to communicate with the Government and will abide by its decisions on the proposals.
I have a final question for all the witnesses. Last week, we took evidence from representatives of Barnardo's and the Aberlour Child Care Trust, both of whom said that the work on healthy diets and eating should perhaps be focused on younger age groups. By the time the primary 1 to 3 policy starts, there is already an issue. Has that issue with the younger generation been aired in council policy discussions?
The agenda on healthy diets and health-promoting educational establishments is at the heart of all our education provision in Inverclyde Council. Youngsters are provided with healthy meals at the early years stage. There is a big commitment to the socialisation aspects and everything around that. That is Inverclyde's policy approach.
Children in nurseries in East Ayrshire are provided with meals as required. In the primary 1 to 3 pilot, I saw a huge improvement in children's attitudes towards the social aspects of food, as well as the nutritional aspects. They were willing to try a much wider range of food. Therefore, the focus on primary 1 to 3 is the right approach.
In the Scottish Borders, most of the nurseries in which children get meals are in the private or voluntary sector. Although our work through the child care strategy promotes healthy eating, we are not in control as fully as we are of the school meals agenda. The local authority nurseries provide healthy snacks, but not meals, although, through wraparound care, children can access school meals. I reiterate the view from East Ayrshire. We saw a definite benefit in the Borders, especially if children sat together, irrespective of their meal choices. They took the opportunity to try different things, which is definitely a big benefit for that younger age group.
Several members want to ask questions and I have them all on a list. However, before we move on, it would be helpful for the committee to have clarity on the written evidence that Aberdeen City Council submitted. Councillor West, who chairs your community planning partnership?
The community planning partnership is chaired by Councillor John Stewart.
Right. Are there members of the council on your community planning partnership?
There are.
If that is the case, and given that the final paragraph of your written submission states that it gives the view of
I apologise for the lack of clarity of that sentence. When it talks about community planning partners, it is referring to discussions that council officers had with national health service officials, rather than with the community planning partnership. The sentence is not very clear, so I apologise for that.
It does not really matter whom you consulted. The question is: is it common practice in Aberdeen City Council for officials to take part in consultations and make policy submissions on behalf of the council that are not signed off by elected members? That is what you are suggesting, Councillor West—that your policy aspirations are at odds with what is stated in the submission. If so, why did Aberdeen City Council not write to the committee to say that it disagreed with the officers' submission and that the views were those of officers?
My apologies for that. As we were given the opportunity to give oral evidence, I did not think to write in and clarify the point. In hindsight, I should have.
So the submission gives the views of officials, and at no point were the councillors of Aberdeen City Council asked to input to it.
The report was produced by officials, and it does not detail the policy.
Did it go before the council's education committee before it was sent to this committee?
No, it did not. There was a tight timescale for submitting the report.
I do not want to labour the point, but I must say that I am left with a lack of clarity on your policy. We have to take what we are given: we ask for written submissions; we are given them; and we have to accept their provenance and that they explain the position.
The commitment to provide free school meals for pupils in P1 to P3 is part of the concordat, and we are committed to fulfilling our concordat obligations. That is the absolute policy from Aberdeen City Council. Ideally, the council would like to provide both a free school breakfast and a free school lunch. We will continue to communicate with the Government, and we will abide by its decisions on the proposals.
You are saying that free school meals for P1 to P3 are in the concordat, so that is a ticked box, but ideally you would also like to provide free school meals and breakfast clubs over and above that. To whom? Would that provision be universal, to pupils in P4 to P7, or targeted in any way? We still do not have clarity from what you have said.
Apologies for that. We will provide free school meals under the concordat and the Government's decisions. We would like to provide free school breakfasts to pupils in P1 to P3. Where that provision would go in future is open ended, but we would like to provide it for P1 to P3.
So you are really talking about targeting P1 to P3.
Yes.
That is despite what you said earlier about targeting. It can be argued, as people have said to the committee, and as one of my colleagues mentioned, that the early years are important. Your actions might also be viewed as being discriminatory towards pupils in classes from P4 upwards. The committee is focused on getting a clear steer that you will provide free school meals for P1 to P3, and that you would, in an ideal world in which any funding that you might require would be available, also want breakfast clubs for all P1 to P3 pupils.
That is correct.
Could you answer my other question about why you think—or, certainly, why your written submission says—that breakfast clubs might be preferable to free school meals in terms of health and education outcomes? As a committee, we have to make a decision on that.
We ran a pilot on free school breakfasts. The committee should have a copy of the pilot evaluation—if it does not, I can provide you with one. The pilot ran from Easter until summer 2008, which is a fairly short timescale, but there was clear evidence that it produced social and educational benefits for the children who were involved. At the beginning of the pilot, 8 per cent of pupils said that they never ate breakfast, but by the end, that figure had dropped to 1 per cent.
Something that came out in a number of the reports that we received from local councils, and which the Scottish Borders Council representative mentioned in passing, is that the impact on capital budgets will be greater for some councils than for others. It is obvious that the councils that were involved in the pilot had to adapt to changes such as staggered lunch breaks, or children not eating free school meals alongside those who had packed lunches. What will the impact be on your councils' capital budgets, and how can you mitigate that impact?
We spent about £140,000 of our grant for the pilot on equipment such as crockery, tables and chairs—in some cases, we had to buy ovens and dishwashers. We did not use the grant for any major capital projects such as refurbishing dining rooms or adapting spaces. We narrowed the scheme down, partly because it was a pilot and we did not know whether it would continue, and partly because we had a short window in which to implement the pilot, from the time that the schools went back until the end of October.
Yes.
We had to do quite a lot to mitigate the impact. We have quite a lot of small halls, and the dining facilities in many of our small schools are used for curricular activities. It was quite a challenge to work with schools to ensure that the space that was available, especially for physical education, did not diminish. The schools rose to the challenge well.
We were not involved in the pilot, as I said. It is not our intention to invest heavily in a capital programme of canteen refurbishment or extension. I read the submissions from the pilot authorities, and given that West Dunbartonshire Council covers an area that is similar in size to the area that Inverclyde Council covers, and has a similar number of pupils from similar socioeconomic backgrounds, we think that our investment in equipment would be around £35,000, as was the case in West Dunbartonshire. That is a guesstimate, of course.
In East Ayrshire, we did not spend capital money for the pilot—because it was a pilot, after all. However, one school in the area would need a new dining room, and other schools would need adaptations to their dining rooms, which would have to be built into the five-year capital programme. In the final analysis, the pilot scheme was successful and worked well, so nothing would inhibit introduction in 2010.
In the majority—if not all—of our primary schools, children eat in the dining room whether they have a packed lunch or a school meal, and we do not have the problem of needing to extend dining rooms. There would, however, need to be some capital spend on equipment, particularly because not all of our primary schools have a kitchen—currently, other schools cook for them.
Mr Henderson, without going into questions of blame, your submission suggests that the implementation of the policy that we are discussing will mean cuts in other parts of your budget, which could result in a reduction in the number of staff who are available for teaching, further contractions in support staff and a requirement to make savings in school transport. Could you comment further on that?
As I said earlier, because of pressures that have crept in, no money is committed to the implementation of the policy. We guarantee that the policy will be implemented, but that will require a realignment of our budget.
In your submission, you say that you are enthusiastic about expanding the provision of free school meals on a targeted basis, and certainly for those who qualify for the maximum working families tax credit, but that the practical implementation of the Government's policy will lead to education cuts. You say that you will, obviously, implement the policy, but question whether it should be a priority.
The council's view—which, having met with the leaders forum, I think is a political view—is that we would welcome universal coverage of free school meals. However, as I said earlier, given the current financial climate and the social and economic situation in Inverclyde, we would prefer to target free school meals so that our budget could be more flexible.
Councillor West, I am not convinced that there is much to be gained from clarifying this point, but I will have a stab anyway.
Having read the evaluation, I think that it improves outcomes and provides value.
The summary then says that
I think that it showed that there were improved outcomes.
Can you tell me what they were?
In relation to the uptake of school meals, there is prior general research evidence to suggest that eating healthy meals every day encourages a healthy lifestyle. The trial showed that there was an uptake of free school meals, which, obviously, improves the health of children and young people.
Aberdeen City Council's submission states that the evaluation
I am not suggesting that. I am sorry, but I do not have that level of detail with me.
I am referring to the submission. If we put the breakfast clubs to one side, is there anything in the submission that we can accept, or should we ignore it altogether?
The statement that I made earlier is that the council's policy is to provide free school meals for P1 to P3. That policy is part of the concordat and we are committed to fulfilling it. Ideally, we would also like to provide a free school breakfast service for P1 to P3. That is the council's policy on the issue.
I accept that that is the council's policy. The committee is trying to assess the impact of the trials and to take evidence from councils such as Aberdeen City Council on what the trials will mean in practice. If it is a nationally agreed policy and it becomes legislation, of course you will implement it—we would expect that—but the committee is trying to assess whether it should approve the legislation. It is all very well saying that you will agree to implement the legislation, but will it have any effect? I am trying to work out what evidence you have that the legislation would lead to healthy outcomes for children, and what other evidence you have to support any conclusions that we come to. At the moment, it is a bit sketchy, to put it mildly.
I did not write the research paper for the Government's evaluation. I understand that you have questioned Ipsos MORI about that. If you are asking me for my opinion, I can give you that, but I am not a statistician and I am afraid that I cannot give you a detailed analysis of the evaluation paper.
Thank you, Councillor West. There is not much point in asking further questions.
At the start, Inverclyde Council said that it welcomed the removal of ring fencing. Why does the cost of free school meals have to come from the education budget? Could it come from elsewhere?
I welcome that support in dealing with the financial services in Inverclyde. It is expected that the funding will come from the education services budget, which is why we have given those figures from the budget.
Have you raised your concerns with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, given that it meets the cabinet secretary fairly regularly?
I am sorry, but I cannot answer that. I do not know whether our representatives have raised that issue with COSLA. The leader of our council has been on national television, expressing Inverclyde's views on the implementation of the legislation. I do not know whether he said the same at a meeting of COSLA.
Would raising your concerns through COSLA not be the appropriate way to deal with the issue?
I do not know whether that has been done, but I agree that that would be appropriate.
Did your council leader raise those concerns at the time of signing the concordat?
I cannot speak for him. As I said earlier, it is in the concordat that the policy is to be carried through by councils. The economic climate and the inflationary situation in councils have changed quite considerably since the concordat was signed. I do not think that that could have been foreseen, so the issue may not have been raised at the time.
I think that there is scope within the concordat to allow discussion to happen if issues arise post-signing. I am still at a loss as to why Inverclyde does not appear to have taken that route.
I am not sure whether we have done so politically, but I agree that that is the correct route to take, and I welcome the flexibility that would allow such discussions to take place in COSLA.
I have a question for Lynn Mirley. Scottish Borders Council has discussed additional spending on equipment. In your submission, you say that catering equipment would cost £5,000 but, further on, under the heading "Total on-going additional cost", the figure for equipment for 2010-11 is £14,000 and the figure for 2011-12 is £22,000. Why the difference? And why do you need to buy additional equipment?
We were asked specifically about set-up costs. Our pilot started in October 2007 and the project will restart in August 2010. We therefore included a small set-up provision to cover the costs of restarting. The on-going figures allow for the fact that the equipment that we bought in October 2007 will be used and will wear out. It will continually need to be repaired and will ultimately need to be replaced. We wanted to include a realistic and sensible provision for that.
So the figure does not cover replacement only.
Once the first month was past and the pilot was up and running, we did not buy any more equipment. If we are to restart, we will have to do certain things, but they will be on a low level, which explains the £5,000. The figures described as on-going are to deal with continual refreshment of equipment, to keep everything at the quality standard that is required of a catering facility.
That is fine, thank you.
The second phase of the trial came after March 2008. By then, we had already taken the big hit of spending £140,000 on equipment. That was a one-off cost, but it was included in the cost per meal. Subsequently, we did not have that cost of £140,000 to include. The evaluation shows how much that equates to for each meal.
So the cost of meals subsequently would not include any additional set-up costs.
Yes—and those costs represented a big chunk. However, one element remained: to make the pilot work, to provide a successful social experience for children, and to get the maximum benefits possible, we felt that we had to retain a supervision element. That is what made the amount higher for us than for other pilot authorities.
Your submission says that the estimated cost of extending eligibility in 2009 is £420,000. However, the figure for 2010 is only £249,000.
The submission shows that the £420,000 is additionality. In 2009-10, there is £20 million nationally, and in 2010-11, there is a further £20 million. The full-year cost is the first £420,000 plus the £249,000. However, as I said in my first answer during this evidence session, we are not fully clear on what the eligibility criteria will be. Our figures are based on an estimate of the amount of money that we think is in the settlement. Because we do not know the eligibility criteria, we do not know the effect on pupil numbers. If the number of additional eligible pupils decreases, there will be more money left to deal with the pilot, and vice versa—if that makes sense.
Yes, it does. Overall, did you find a lot of benefits in the trial? The Borders has particular issues, as it is a more rural area. What are your general thoughts on that?
The period of planning and setting up the trial was quite stressful. The benefit for authorities now is that they know that the programme is starting in August 2010, so they have a lot longer to plan. The timescale for the pilot made their engagement with schools more concentrated on a period of a couple of months.
It is to your credit that you managed to get things done so quickly. In 2010, it will be much easier for you.
Food is getting higher on the education agenda and on the agenda of parents. My understanding from anecdotal evidence is that the service is very popular among parents, because they know that their children are safe and looked after. They know that they are being fed good food, and that they are mixing in a more social environment.
Do you have anything to add, Councillor West? Aberdeen has a history of offering breakfasts. Have parents enjoyed that service? Has there been increasing engagement with the schools that have offered that service?
Parents were enthusiastic about the pilot programme for breakfasts. The children were surveyed at the beginning of the pilot and then again at the end. The parents' attitudes came through in the answers that the children gave. At the beginning of the pilot, a child would typically say, "It'll be good, because I'll get to go to school and play with my friends and get breakfast." At the end, the children were saying, "It's good, because I get breakfast for free, and Mummy doesn't have to buy cereal." The parents' points of view were coming through and it was clear that parents were engaged and were talking to their children about it. I thought that that was really good.
I have another question relating to Inverclyde. I am not sure whether you listened to last week's evidence from children's groups and organisations, Mr Henderson. I understand that there are significant pressures in Inverclyde, which has higher levels of deprivation. John Dickie suggested that a greater proportion of children in more deprived areas are positively affected if a universal approach is taken in, for example, the provision of free school meals. He said that taking a universal approach has a big impact on those living in poverty. His comments can be found in the Official Report of last week's meeting.
I do not disagree with the comment. I reiterate Inverclyde Council's position on the matter: we welcome a universal approach being taken to the provision of free school meals. That approach helps in all kinds of ways, including, as the witness rightly said, in terms of the needier in society. Our use of cashless catering and smart cards reduces the stigma around free school meals provision and universality will help in that regard. As I said, I do not disagree with the evidence that the committee heard last week from the charities.
My question is for Scottish Borders Council. I understand what you said about the high cost of provision, but Dumfries and Galloway Council estimates its costs at £1.86 and Moray Council's estimate is a cost of between 78p and £1.31. Why are your overall costs—not only those for equipment purchase—higher than those rural authorities' costs?
There are several aspects to the question—
Sorry, I should have said that I was working in a school only two years ago.
I cannot comment on how Moray Council and Dumfries and Galloway Council structure their costs. From our recent children's services review, I appreciate the difficulties in comparing costs and evaluating the cost basis. Our costs are based on the cost of the pilot and the cost of providing meals.
The population in Dumfries and Galloway is about 50 per cent higher than that in the Scottish Borders Council area, but its figure for the first year is £881,000 whereas yours is £1.072 million. Despite having a similar population to the Scottish Borders Council area, Inverclyde Council's costs are about a third of your costs. Those comparisons raise questions about what is being delivered. Seven local authorities have produced estimates that are less even than the Scottish Government estimate. The committee has to wrestle with the differences in the figures with which we are being presented.
I am not doing the mental arithmetic in my head. I will stand corrected on the figure.
I was called "Statto" in the first parliamentary session. It was said in "Gregory's Girl" that boys think in numbers; I think I am one such boy.
Yes.
That is it in a nutshell. If you thought that you had the money to implement the policy, you would be happy to do so.
Yes. We favour a universal policy.
In the final paragraph of your submission, you state:
I should qualify who the target audience for that comment was. The issue relates to a number of things that have been said around the table. I have considered the pilot scheme and its evaluation. The pilot authorities have seen a significant increase in the number of pupils who take school meals, and an increase in the number of pupils who take free school meals. I think the study shows that the jury is still out on converting those pupils to healthy eating.
Last week, John Dickie of the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland said:
We did not take part in the pilot scheme; our report was based on local surveys that we carried out. I am encouraged by some of the findings in the evaluation and by some of the pilot authorities' comments on the healthy eating that the legislation might bring about, and I am particularly encouraged by the post-school conversations with parents about diet, which have been mentioned. A powerful point has been made.
Mr Dickie said on behalf of the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland that 94,000 children are living in poverty—a number of those children will be in Inverclyde—and that 40,000 children in Scotland would benefit from the policy. He stated:
Yes.
We have concentrated on the financial implications of the policy, but I wonder whether councils have considered the knock-on effect that it might have on other policy commitments. Fourteen of the submissions from local authorities—more than half—highlight issues around staggered lunch times and extended use of dining halls, which often double as halls where PE instruction takes place. The commitment that every child should have two hours of PE instruction a week is the one that I am particularly concerned about. Have local authorities given any consideration to whether staggered lunch times would impact on schools' ability to fulfil that commitment?
As I said, North Lanarkshire Council has suggested that. I would have a worry in respect of time, so we would try to avoid staggered lunch hours whenever possible in smaller schools that have a single dining hall/gym facility. We would have to think about that approach because it would have an impact.
Our experience of running the pilot was that it did not impinge much on the curriculum. At most, it allowed the younger children to eat five or 10 minutes earlier than they would have done previously. One view might be that the school lunch time has been continually reduced over time, so we need to question whether that is still the best way of doing things.
A number of our schools already have staggered lunch times, so I do not envisage its being a problem. As I have said, all the children already eat within the canteen or the dining room, so it would not be an issue for us.
Most of our comments have already been made in respect of this. We found that, because we worked with the schools, the policy did not have as big an impact as we had expected, although it was challenging to manage. Mr Henderson's comment about annex E of "A Teaching Profession for the 21st Century" explains why we had to provide dining room supervision. We could not reduce the classroom assistant input because in the Borders the classroom assistant input is spread more thinly over a larger number of schools. That is the one thing we had to deal with that we did not, when we accepted the pilot, realise was going to be such a big issue. We realised the importance of it only once we started talking to schools.
When I was at school, our PE classes were held outside—football for the boys, hockey for the girls, or whatever. It never did us any harm, as the saying goes.
It is obvious that you do not represent Shotts. I would not advise schools there to hold PE classes outside, no matter how hardy the children of Shotts might be.
Good morning. I draw your attention to the paragraph entitled "Free school meals" on page 5 of the concordat. It states:
That was more of a statement than a question.
It was a question and they all answered yes. That is enough.
That was quite helpful because I was going to ask a question about the concordat wording. Additional funding was given to support the pilot, and we are aware that the concordat says that if the pilot is successful, local authorities will implement the policy. I had understood a pilot to be a trial of whether something is going to be successful, but the concordat seems to argue that the money already exists. I am unclear about what local authorities planned to do with the money if the pilot had been unsuccessful and its outcomes had not been positive. Local authorities are being questioned about whether they have the money, and Inverclyde Council has said that it would have to move the money from other budgets. Is it reasonable to expect councils to have allocated that money before the pilot was completed and we had the evidence?
To reiterate the point I made earlier, any available money in Inverclyde Council's education services budget has been sucked in to deal with pressures that I mentioned earlier. Money is not identified in our current budget to deal with free school meals.
Did any of the local authorities identify that money for the 2010-11 budget before we had the evidence from the pilot? Did anyone think, "We need to lay that money aside in advance of knowing the outcomes?"
We are in our budget process at the moment, so the cost of introducing free school meals for P1 to P3 pupils in August 2010 will be taken account of during it.
I was confused because Inverclyde Council said that its money was already identified.
We have not kept any money at all in the current year. As East Ayrshire Council will do, when we know the decision, money will be put aside to cover it.
My other question is for the pilot authorities. Scottish Borders Council has already mentioned that it faces difficulties because the pilot has stopped and there will be a gap before the scheme starts. East Ayrshire Council might also like to comment on that. Has there been a reduction in the amount of children taking school dinners since the pilot stopped? Has there been any response from parents on the gap facing the pilot authorities?
We are just starting to get the data back in, and it takes a wee while to see a trend.
Yes. I wondered about parental reaction, but you have touched on that.
We have not had direct parental feedback. Throughout the pilot, most of our parental feedback was about the fact that we changed our process for ordering meals. We did that for two reasons. First, the significant change of the pilot meant that we needed to consider how we ordered meals. Secondly, we wanted to do something about stigma. We introduced a system in which all the meal choices were on an envelope. We had more parental feedback about that than about the pilot. Even the evaluation from Ipsos MORI suggested that the response to that change was mixed—some people really like it and some really hate it.
In general, the reaction from catering staff, parents and teachers was that the system was working well and that it was a pity that it was going to stop. Local radio and the print media were interested in the fact that the pilot was stopping. I almost felt as though I was responsible for that.
I have a couple of questions for Inverclyde Council. We have identified the deprivation issues that the council is dealing with. Does the authority know how many children live in poverty in its area? Of that group, how many are entitled to free school meals? How many would benefit from the extension of free school meals to families that receive tax credits?
I am not sure whether I have with me information in such detail. I do not have in my notes the size of the overall school population, but I can obtain a breakdown of that information if the committee needs it. I think that 29 per cent of P1 to P3 children in Inverclyde are entitled to free school meals.
Is that under the current entitlement system?
Yes.
If entitlement were extended to children of families that receive maximum tax credits, how many additional children would that bring into the system?
I am sorry—I do not have that figure.
That is fine.
The city council has worked hard to stabilise the budget and I am convinced that the council will be back on a firm financial footing following the next budget round. Officers are already factoring in free school meals.
Have officers factored in the provision of free breakfasts? At one point, you unequivocally committed Aberdeen City Council to providing free school breakfasts. You originally said that that was a policy aspiration, but you said later that the council would provide free breakfasts and that you were confident that you had the money, although you have not agreed the budget yet.
I said that the council would ideally like to provide free school breakfasts and free school lunches for primary 1 to 3 children. I was asked whether I felt that the resources would be available to do that and I said that I felt that they would. That may be what you are referring to.
I think you committed the city council to providing breakfasts, although it has not yet agreed its budget. We will look with interest at whether that is delivered in the new financial year.
Meeting continued in private until 13:04.