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We move to item 3. I welcome David Cowan from the bill team; Maria McCann, who is branch head of the supporting for learning division; and Gerry Bonnar from the office of the solicitor to the Scottish Executive. Thank you for attending the committee.
Local authorities are widely embracing hungry for success, although the report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education on the implementation of the policy in primary schools showed that implementation is patchy across Scotland. In the first instance, therefore, we want to ensure that there is a consistently high standard across Scotland. Also, as you will know, hungry for success covers only school lunches. We want to go further than that. We think that schools are implementing the policy well and have taken some steps forward, but we want to go further and cover all food that is provided in schools. Beyond that, we want to make health promotion a central purpose of schooling rather than the add-on that it currently is. In essence, we want to lock in the achievements of hungry for success and our health-promoting schools policy, build on the momentum and ensure that practice is raised to a uniform standard throughout Scotland.
How did the Executive consult on these proposals and whom did you consult? The committee is particularly keen to know how you engaged with the consumers of the legislation—the young people and children in our schools—to ensure that it will meet their needs and their aspirations to be healthy Scots.
We consulted widely. We sent nearly 6,000 copies of our consultation document to a wide range of stakeholders, including schools, education authorities and others with an interest in education, health organisations and local authorities. There is a long list of other consultees, which I will not go into but which we can provide if you would like. We sent out nearly 6,000 copies of the consultation document, and the Scottish health-promoting schools unit and NHS Health Scotland organised further targeted events on our behalf. We also held two in-depth stakeholder meetings to determine what the key elements of a health-promoting school are and to consider the financial implications of the bill. From that, we ended up with 371 responses, of which 96 per cent were in favour of the proposals overall, although many made comments on certain aspects of the bill.
The policy memorandum states that the bill will
The consultation document discussed health-promoting environments, but we received a considerable amount of feedback suggesting that we may be confusing the issue in talking about health-promoting environments as opposed to health-promoting schools. We have, therefore, decided to revert to focusing on our health-promoting schools policy. A "health-promoting school" is defined as
Will the word "environment" be taken out of the bill?
Yes.
There are many new builds in the primary sector and there are issues to do with schools that are provided through public-private partnership schemes and the private finance initiative. For example, classrooms and gyms in such schools are sometimes smaller and there has even been an impact on ventilation in schools elsewhere in the United Kingdom. Will consideration be given to how new schools are built and whether the school's structure—I am avoiding the word "environment"—promotes health?
Yes. The Scottish health-promoting schools unit's publication "Being Well—Doing Well" explores the need to take account of health promotion in the context of new build or refurbishment. We have been in close contact with colleagues who work on the school estate strategy and the issue is acknowledged in work to develop the specification.
Many authorities, such as Scottish Borders Council, are building new primary schools. Are they aware of the document?
As far as we know, it has been sent to all local authorities.
The issue relates to my next question. What type of activities should schools promote? I am talking not just about the promotion of good food but about pupils' lifestyles.
A health-promoting school would adopt the whole-school approach that is advocated in "Hungry for Success: A Whole School Approach to School Meals in Scotland", so health promotion could permeate everything that happened in the school. Of course, the curriculum is key and issues such as healthy eating can be explored through all subjects. For example, physical activity and its implications can be considered in the context not just of physical education but of mathematics and science.
We have talked about the issue in relation to school builds and you have mentioned the curriculum. What is the view of the teachers unions? I have two sisters who are primary school teachers, who tell me that a lot of material is thrown at them but they just want to get on with teaching.
We have had a positive response from the teaching profession. Health-promoting schools consider the health of all members of the community, including teachers. The Educational Institute of Scotland supports the initiative and has produced its own publication on health-promoting schools. There has been positive coverage of the initiative in TES Scotland—The Times Educational Supplement and we think that teachers regard it not as an extra burden but as being for the benefit of all.
Attempts have been made to sell off school playing fields—or slices of them. If we want to provide a healthy environment for children, it is important that playing fields that give them space in which to run do not disappear. To what extent will consideration of such matters be fed into the system?
The benefit of the approach in the bill is that local authorities will be required to include health promotion in their improvement plans, so they will be accountable at strategic level. Authorities will have to take account of health promotion when they make decisions about how to deploy resources or what to do with local playing fields, which will link into school development plans. Health promotion will therefore be in the main stream of local authorities' strategies, which is the best way of providing safeguards in the context that you describe.
The underlying idea behind health-promoting schools is a fundamentally civilised one, but I wonder how the definition was arrived at. In the document that you mentioned, "Being Well—Doing Well", health is taken to mean
You picked up the fairly obvious point that we did not want to get into the spiritual element of the matter in legislation. The definition was derived from the World Health Organization's definition, which was filtered through "Being Well—Doing Well", but we modified it slightly for the bill. Sexual health will be covered by the bill because health education is an essential element of health promotion and it will be picked up in the guidance.
That is reassuring. Will the impact of the health-promoting schools initiative have any other consequences for the guidance? Have any other lessons been learned in developing the guidance?
Yes. In the guidance, we hope to build on existing policy. We have already pulled together expert groups on physical activity and mental and emotional well-being as well as nutrition. Those groups are considering the various elements of health-promoting schools and they have examined existing policies and guidance. We hope that we can take forward any lessons that have been learned from previous policies.
You clarified the point about health-promoting environments, but the definition in the bill mentions the "environment and facilities" of a school. How will they be monitored? What work will be done after the bill is enacted to monitor a school's environment and facilities?
We will be in discussion with HMIE, but it already considers a variety of things to establish whether a school is health promoting. We will look to see whether that approach is robust enough when the bill is enacted. If we need to make any changes, we will do so, but in essence HMIE asks a series of questions and uses a series of indicators to determine whether a school is health promoting. We will re-examine that approach and consider whether it needs to be changed in the light of the bill.
I assume that there will be a single set of guidance that applies to all schools.
That is more than likely. Like other education policies, it will match the three-to-18 curriculum. However, we recognise that some elements of it will not be appropriate for three to five-year-olds, five to 12-year-olds or whatever. It will be tailored for each level of schooling to make sure that it is appropriate.
So there will not be separate guidance for denominational schools.
No.
What progress have schools made in implementing the current non-statutory nutritional standards?
We have been monitoring progress through HMIE inspections. HMIE has associate nutritional assessors who are specialists in the field. They have reported that the quality of the food provided and the nutrient standards in the primary sector were good in most of the schools that were inspected—they used a four-point scale in which "good" is the second level and "very good" is top of the scale. There was some way to go because standards were not uniform across all the schools that were inspected. However, HMIE picked out nutrient standards and the quality of food provided as one point on which progress had been made.
That leads me on to my next question. What are the benefits of giving nutritional standards a statutory basis?
It sends the message that the nutrient standards are not optional, will not go away and have to be paid attention to because they are so important for health.
Why then will the new legal obligation to meet the nutritional standards apply only to local authority and grant-aided schools but not to independent schools?
The obligation to meet the standards will apply to independent schools where a local authority is purchasing a place for a pupil, but such pupils are a very small minority. We consulted on the coverage of the obligation and were advised that the independent sector should have as little legislative burden placed on it as possible so that it can maintain its independence. Some consultation responses raised that issue, but it was not enough to make a change to the bill.
Essentially, it is not normal practice for the Executive to impose legislative burdens on independent schools as, by their very nature, they are independent. That is Scottish Executive policy. The main reason is that we do not provide funding for meals in independent schools; such funding is the tie that we have with local authority schools that we do not have with independent schools.
I will certainly want to come back to that point. I understand that private nurseries will be in the same position and will not have to meet the requirements of the legislation. I take it that many local authorities purchase private nursery places, so is it the same answer for them?
No. We considered various possibilities for nurseries. We want to ensure that the same standards apply as much as possible across the nursery sector, so the bill will apply to local authority nurseries. I take your point about purchasing places in private nurseries, but local authorities rarely purchase food provision as part of their nursery provision. Food is generally not an element of the purchase because most nursery children do not get lunch; they get two sessions in one day and lunch is not included. So we considered whether there were better ways to get purchase in the sector and we discovered that the Standards in Scotland's Schools etc Act 2000 gives us the power to issue guidance that covers the whole pre-school sector, nought to three and three to five. I believe that that power is in section 34 of the act.
The power covers local authority arrangements for pre-school education. Where local authorities are making arrangements with private providers, under section 34 of the 2000 act ministers can issue guidance on the purchase of provision.
Basically, we are looking to issue guidance that will cover not only nutritional regulations but health-promoting schools. We think that we are getting better purchase in this sector than we would have if we had limited our efforts to the bill itself.
The legislation will cover lunches and snacks in local authority schools and nurseries. You are probably right to point out that local authorities are purchasing half-day places, which will mean that lunches will not be involved. However, I have visited loads of private nurseries in my time as an MSP and know that they provide snacks just as local authority nurseries do. How do we deal with that issue?
In January 2006, we issued nutrition guidance to all nurseries. It contained menu planning and food-based standards for what should and should not be acceptable. That is monitored by the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care. This year, the care commission will introduce some questions on nutrition to find out what is provided by nurseries. We recognise that we want to instil good habits in kids as early as possible and that nurseries are important in that regard. We are trying to develop an approach that is appropriate to that sector. It is a varied sector, so I think that legislation would not work in this instance. Further, as nurseries have not had the experience of the hungry for success campaign in the past three years, they have not been building up towards the kind of things that it relates to. We want to encourage change in this sector and will be monitoring the implementation of the guidance that we issued in January.
Guidance has already been issued to local authorities and schools, but we are introducing the bill because we are saying that it is better if that guidance is enshrined in legislation. Is it good enough simply to issue guidance to the private sector? Would private nurseries have such a big hill to climb to provide nutritious snacks and light lunches?
I am telling you the advice that we have been given, based on the varied nature of the situation. The pre-school sector contains a variety of groups from local authority nurseries to playgroups with six people in them, which means that the situation is difficult to monitor. We are not going to introduce the same nutrient standards as schools will have because it is not intended that we will conduct inspections across the board in the nursery sector. The care commission is monitoring the situation and we will keep an eye on that to see whether the guidance is being taken forward.
You can be sure that we will come back to this issue as the bill progresses.
As part of the process of developing the regulations, we pulled together a short-life expert working group to make recommendations with regard to the nutritional requirements in terms of nutrient-based standards and food-based standards. That group has concluded the majority of its work and will have only one or two further meetings. It has already made the bulk of its recommendations for school lunches and other food that is provided in schools. Ministers are considering those recommendations at the moment and will make decisions about when to share them.
Will the recommendations be shared?
I would expect so.
What are the key differences between the standards, the regulations and the current guidelines?
We cannot say at this point, as the regulations have not yet been decided. As I said, recommendations have been made but, until ministers decide what they want to take from those recommendations, we will not know what the regulations will be. The key difference will be that the regulations will cover all food and drinks that are provided by local authority and grant-aided schools, not just lunches. That means that they will cover food that is available in tuck shops, vending machines, breakfast clubs and so on.
Are there exceptions to the requirement to meet nutritional standards?
Yes. The biggest exception is packed lunches; the bill does not cover food that is brought into school. We have also made allowances for school trips, sports days, school discos and cultural events such as Burns suppers.
I hope that you are not suggesting that a Burns supper is not nutritional food. I like tatties, neeps and haggis—they are very good for you. I am sure that you do not want that suggestion attributed to you.
I suppose that it depends on how rich the haggis is.
I concede that some of those reasons are common sense, but let us return to the issue of packed lunches. Young children might vote with their lunch boxes, so to speak. They might say, "I am not going to eat the nutritional meal. I will bring in crisps and sweeties." How can you deal with that, other than acting as the food police for parents or carers? Is there not a danger that that is what will happen?
The bill does not cover packed lunches, but we want to work with parents on the issue. Many young people will bring packed lunches into school and our health-promoting schools policy will come into play in this regard. We want to share with young people and their parents our knowledge of how to make healthy choices. A strand of work is in place under which we will look at the different channels that can be used to communicate with parents on choices, including for packed lunches.
This is a sensitive area. Rightly or wrongly, there could be quite a bit of resentment from parents.
We have discussed the issue with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. It is keen to use the community planning process and the influence of local councillors and of communities more generally. We want to take this forward as a discussion issue. We have evidence that shops and mobile units are serving more healthy food and that they have made that conversion as a result of this kind of dialogue. We do not anticipate that every chip shop will change what it serves and we know that it will be a slow process. However, we have the backing of local councillors and politicians and that is a major way to go.
I am not trying to be difficult, but I note that the consultation did not elicit many responses. In some places—I think that it was Fife—only three people responded.
Two.
I stand corrected. A substantial number—90—responded in Dumfries and Galloway; they really got stuck in. One has to look carefully at the results, as they do not seem to be representative of young people across the country.
We also did something even narrower. We talked to the pupil council of Notre Dame high school through a videoconference link. When one talks to young people in detail, one gets a sense of their growing knowledge about healthy eating and of a level of sophistication about food choices. They would take more healthy options if there were more choices such as smoothies. We can use knowledge from encounters with young people to try to meet their needs as consumers and customers, but that is only one of many strands to encouraging healthy eating.
I hear what you are saying. Smoothies are trendier than the haggis that was mentioned earlier.
I will follow up on the important point that has already been raised about chip shops and corner shops. It is not much use to create a healthy eating ethos in a school and persuade parents to send in healthy packed lunches if the school is surrounded by corner shops and chip shops that dole out junk food and generate a lot of litter. That is a genuine problem. I accept that local authorities are trying to engage with the people who are part of that problem but, if we are to legislate on the matter, is there not a case for taking some additional powers of control over food outlets that are within walking distance of schools? I am the old Stalinist on the committee; let us have a go at it.
In the Executive's view, that is principally a planning matter, so it would not come within the scope of the bill.
A planning matter? It is funny that you should say that to the Communities Committee.
To be clear, I am trying to give a helpful legal answer rather than a policy answer.
Yes, but we are politicians and you are a lawyer.
I am sure that my friends will want to assist.
We are aware of the issue. The focus of the bill is somewhat restricted, in that it considers food in schools. It is difficult to encourage healthy eating in a school if there are chip vans right outside or chippies just down the road, but there are also European Union regulations on restrictions on trade, so we must be careful how we deal with the matter. We cannot say that, if food in schools is to be healthy, food outside schools must be healthy. We cannot achieve what we want in that way; there are other ways of doing it.
Those are policy issues that we will want to pursue with the minister when he comes to the committee.
We cannot rule out that possibility and, obviously, we cannot at this stage go into detail on the regulations and the action that they will translate into. When the hungry for success nutrition standards were introduced in primary schools, there was a small decrease in uptake but, now that adjustment has been made, the uptake has righted itself and returned to previous levels. There is a similar pattern with uptake in secondary schools. The target date for the implementation of hungry for success in secondary schools is December 2006, so those schools are going through a similar process.
I want to ask about snacks—and I begin by saying that I am not an advocate of the Boris Johnson snacks policy.
The notion of "any time of the day" relates to when the education authority would make arrangements to provide snacks, rather than to when the child would have a right to seek a snack.
The Education (Scotland) Act 1980 specifies that it is the midday meal that the education authority can provide, but we wanted the flexibility that the notion of "any time of the day" would provide. It is not that the child would be able to have a snack at any time of the day.
Okay, but that is not clear in the bill.
No, and I can understand how you could interpret the provision in that way.
Mr Petrie also asked about catering staff.
Yes. I wondered what the impact on them would be.
Many local authorities already provide breakfast clubs of one sort or another, and some clubs are provided by parents or voluntary organisations. Some schools, but not many, bring in caterers; the breakfasts tend to be fairly simple—cereal, toast and juice. We do not have much information, but where local authorities provide the service, it does not seem to create a massive problem for catering staff.
I notice that, at present, kids get free fruit three times a week. I take it that, under the bill, that would increase to five times a week.
That could happen, if local authorities chose to provide such a service.
Right. Are there any practical difficulties that local authorities might face in making use of the power to provide snacks?
Not that we are aware of. Maria McCann talked about the free fruit initiative, which most local authorities have found fairly straightforward. There has been the odd mention of difficulty with storage.
That is what I was thinking of.
A bit of preparation time has been needed on occasion. Schools and local authorities have found fairly creative ways around difficulties and have managed to provide the service quite happily. We know of one school that used the initiative to involve parents, who came in to help to prepare the fruit.
Good. Finally, what are the reasons for not allowing free school meals to be provided for every pupil, as some of the consultation responses suggested?
In its consultation, the Executive sought views on extending eligibility, while making it clear that Executive policy is that we do not believe in providing universal free school meals. The Executive believes that resources can be used much more effectively. We want to target resources where they are needed and to ensure that the families whose children are entitled to free school meals are encouraged to take them up. That is more important than providing free school meals to those who can afford to pay for them.
We have already touched on the point that the convener made about the declining uptake of school meals in secondary schools and the only marginal increase in uptake in primary schools. I acknowledge that the hungry for success initiative will not be introduced in secondary schools until later this year. However, have you identified any reasons for the declining uptake in secondary schools and the only marginal increase in primary schools, even after the hungry for success project, which aimed to increase uptake in primary schools?
A reason for the decline in uptake in secondary schools that local authorities identified in this year's school meal survey was the adjustment to the new menu. Some also said that they had had teething problems with the cashless systems. We know that there are complex reasons for people choosing whether to have a school meal. The choice is not just based on the food that is available. Young people are highly influenced by their friends, and if their friends want a packed lunch, they might choose to join them. Some older pupils want to get out of school to have a break from the school environment, just as people want to get out of the office to have a break from the office environment.
Is it not worrying that in both primary and secondary schools less than half the pupils have school meals? We have discussed a range of factors, including the built environment and peer pressure. How confident are you that giving legislative status to promotion and to the standard of food will make the breakthrough?
Our aim is to improve uptake, but we need to be realistic. We do not suggest that 100 per cent of pupils at any time will take school meals, but there is headroom to increase uptake. That will certainly be our aim. The legislative basis will provide a renewed impetus and focus for local authorities, but only time will tell whether that is successful.
The reasons given for the low level of uptake relate to issues that will continue to exist, such as the built environment and peer pressure. Would it not have been better to address the concerns about the built environment and peer pressure before introducing legislation to set nutritional standards?
It is important to consider that issue within the context of the bill's overarching purpose of health promotion. Health promotion involves both ensuring that food in schools is healthy and encouraging kids—we cannot force them—to choose to eat healthy food. A key element of the health-promoting school is to teach kids about healthy choices and healthy eating. Research and experience from elsewhere show that, if health promotion policies are introduced without ensuring that nutritional food is made available in schools, kids will not make the healthy choices. The two things need to be put together; we cannot deal with them in isolation.
Given that the uptake of school meals is dependent on factors such as parental influence and pupil preferences, what will be the specific impact of the statutory duty on education authorities to promote school meals? Can the Executive set targets for how things should improve when so much is outwith the Executive's control?
Obviously, the hope is that uptake will increase. That is our ultimate aim. The purpose of the duty to promote uptake is to ensure that local authorities are doing what they can to encourage pupils to take lunches by, for example, improving the quality of the food and of the dining experience, ensuring that information is provided on what is available and involving pupils and parents in menu selection. Local authorities can do a variety of such things, but we will be looking for evidence of activities to promote school lunches. That will be the interim measure, if you like. Basically, it will be great if we get an increase in uptake, but we want to ensure that local authorities do not simply sit back and let pupils decide for themselves. We want to ensure that local authorities actively promote the uptake of school lunches.
How will the Executive measure the success or otherwise of the new duty on local authorities? For example, does the Executive intend to set targets for the uptake of schools meals in each local authority area?
We do not intend to set targets. As I said, we will look for evidence of promotion of school meals. In the short term, we will measure success through HMIE reporting on how schools are doing with health promotion policies, the hungry for success initiative and nutrition standards in schools. We will continue to look closely at the school meals statistics over the years. Clearly, we hope that uptake of school meals will increase. We will watch the figures and try to isolate the different factors that determine success. In the long term, we will look at national health service statistics to identify whether the measure has helped to improve health in Scotland.
What evidence of promotion of school meals will the Executive look for from local authorities? What specific things will authorities be required to do?
Authorities could take a range of actions, but it is more about the active engagement of young people and parents and strategic leadership being taken with schools to ensure that the promotion of school meals is a priority. The environment that is provided and the way in which meals are served are among the many other aspects that demonstrate evidence of promotion. There will be variations among localities, but it will be important for schools to understand where they are now, where they want to get to and how they will do that, and to explain their choices coherently. There is no standard reply, but a number of indicators would be used by HMIE when collecting evidence.
The bill will introduce anonymised systems. We will consider whether the removal of any perception of stigma has an impact, and some parents who had not done so previously might encourage their children to sign up for free school meals.
I do not wish to be accused of wanting to tie the hands of local authorities; it is important that they have flexibility. However, it strikes me that if all we are going to do is monitor whether local authorities have made an attempt to promote the uptake of school meals without actually requiring them to take action, we could find ourselves saying in five or 10 years' time that nothing has changed and that there has been no increase in uptake. If we go to any school in my constituency—and probably any school in the constituencies of the other MSPs around the table—we might find a general willingness to promote health and to support children in making the right choices for their diet. However, if we do not impose requirements, we might not get the changes.
We will have to consider that. Judging from our conversations with COSLA, authorities are keen to maintain flexibility in this area, and they would not welcome targets.
You have spoken about promoting school meals, the environment and the various things that you hope individual schools and local authorities will do. What is it about the proposed legislation that will allow steps to be taken in a way that the present system does not? What is there to prevent individual schools and authorities from doing now all the things that you have said need to be done? Is it not the case that they could all be done already without the bill?
Yes and no. The whole point is that we want to build on the momentum that has already been achieved though the health-promoting schools policy and on the achievements of hungry for success. As I said, hungry for success covers only school lunches; we want to ensure that all food is covered, and that is what the regulations under the bill will do.
In paragraph 35 of the policy memorandum, the Executive says:
The various elements of the hungry for success initiative were costed, and by 2007-08 almost £120 million will have been paid to local authorities to implement the recommendations in the "Hungry for Success" report—as you know, all local authorities should have implemented them by the end of 2006. Money has been made available to enable local authorities to make the transition to healthy school meals and to train staff. Money has also been made available through estates for the upgrading of dining facilities. Hungry for success was costed on the basis of a 6 per cent increase in uptake of school meals, which did not happen, so local authorities have been well funded to make the transition and meet the nutritional requirements. Some authorities have not yet implemented hungry for success, but the money will remain available until 2007-08.
Was the money ring fenced?
No. It was provided for nutrition, with a strong recommendation on what authorities should do with it.
The money was initially ring fenced. The national priorities action fund has existed since 1997 and initially all the various strands of the fund were ring fenced. However, COSLA made strong representations that it wanted the flexibility to be able to transfer moneys, and that flexibility was granted.
We might want to ask the minister about money, convener.
That is entirely up to you.
Yes. Local authorities frequently discuss such matters. Some authorities have experienced significant increases in uptake across the piece, but the picture varies from authority to authority. Authorities can take action to increase throughput at meal times, by timetabling two sittings, for example. David Cowan mentioned grab bags, which provide a guaranteed healthy packed lunch that pupils can eat wherever they want to eat it. The issue has to be considered on a case-by-case basis. We have declining school rolls, but that might have a minimal impact on accommodation. There is no single solution that will fit every school, but solutions can be found locally through innovative and flexible approaches.
There have been some interesting examples that will be shared among local authorities. The health-promoting schools unit already has that function, and we will share any other ideas that we come across. I mentioned the healthy food vans that Fife has provided, which have helped to reduce queueing in certain circumstances. Some local authorities are considering options for providing chilled nutritious food through vending machines.
I have a question about physical capacity, especially of kitchens. Is the Executive satisfied that the school building that is taking place at the moment is creating schools that have kitchens that are up to the job of cooking with ingredients, rather than simply reheating and presenting processed food?
That issue was raised during the work of the expert group on nutritional standards, which asked whether the necessary capacity existed. A catering representative on the group informed us that, generally speaking, the phased implementation of the hungry for success programme has meant that school kitchens are equipped for cooking, rather than just reheating.
In existing schools, that is truer in Scotland than in England, where the problem is greater. My question relates to new build. Is the capacity to cook food going in with the bricks in new schools?
I am not in a position to answer that question, but we can get back to the committee on the issue.
Provision is definitely being made in the authorities with which I am familiar. The public-private partnership schools in Edinburgh, for example, generally have a kitchen, which in some schools has led to an increase in the uptake of school meals. We can provide you with more detail on the situation in individual authorities, if that would be helpful.
It would be helpful for us to get that reassurance.
Some local authorities provide a central service.
A while ago you raised the issue of anonymity. What is the evidence that lack of anonymity is a barrier to uptake?
We have looked at research into the issue. There is no evidence to suggest that, in itself, introducing anonymised systems will result in an increase in uptake. The research tends to show that whether people qualify for free school meals is not an issue for pupils. However, parents often cite embarrassment or concern that people will find out that their children are eligible for free school meals as a reason for not signing up for them. We want to remove that barrier. We want to reassure parents as much as possible that the systems that are in place are anonymised, so that the issue ceases to be a factor when they make decisions about their children's entitlement to free school meals.
So the evidence does not suggest that lack of anonymity is a barrier to uptake, but the Executive has decided to introduce anonymised systems anyway.
Yes. There is no clear evidence that introducing anonymised systems will result in increased uptake, but we have taken the position that no one and no family should be stigmatised for taking a free school meal. If there is a perception that that could be the case, we want to ensure that we remove it.
According to the evidence that is before me, the expert panel on school meals found that stigma was not the most important factor in influencing take-up of free school meals. The evaluation of the hungry for success programme found that staff and children did not believe that stigma was attached to free school meals at their schools. Given that, what is the reason for removing from local authorities and schools the discretion to decide what is appropriate in their local area? Why are you requiring them to spend money on perhaps quite sophisticated systems to provide anonymity?
Authorities and schools do not have to use technology to provide anonymity. Some schools use a very simple system that involves everyone sending in an envelope and all children getting the same envelope back. They do not have to choose a cashless system. Often, cashless systems are chosen for administrative reasons and to improve efficiency and effectiveness rather than to provide anonymity, although people in local authorities and others see anonymity as a benefit. However, evidence exists that increased anonymity can be provided. The concern that exists is not strong, but it is sufficient for ministers to feel that it is worth ensuring that nothing will prevent young people from poor families—who could benefit most from school meals, as such meals represent a significant part of their nutrition—from taking up those meals.
You have talked about technological and non-technological systems for providing anonymity. Will you give a clear picture of the systems that are in use? What range of options would a school or local authority have if it decided to or was required to provide anonymity?
There are various options, but we know most about cashless swipe-card systems, which many local authorities have introduced or are introducing. In primary schools in particular, most children still rely on some form of system in which everyone has the same ticket and payment is anonymous. There used to be differently coloured tickets for different meals, whether or not the meal was free, but most people have now moved to the ticketing systems that have been introduced.
Does the Executive have any preference?
No, as long as the system provides anonymity.
I wonder whether the Executive has thought about the possible unintended consequences of using cashless swipe-card systems. I have spoken to people who share my concern that the cost of such systems will be paid for in consumer debts in 20 years' time. Has any thought been given to the unintended consequences of encouraging children to get used to putting things on plastic?
Not that I am aware of, but we can check that with colleagues.
I have a final question on the decisions that the Executive took before making its proposals. Obviously, a range of diversity issues can lead to stigma and bullying in schools. Such things could be the result of a person's behaviour, religion, identity or economic status. We can try to remove visual signifiers of diversity or try to ensure that diversity does not lead to bullying or stigma. Has the Executive made a philosophical decision on which approach it will take in that respect and on whether removing visual indicators is necessary to prevent bullying and stigma? Perhaps that is a question for the minister.
Perhaps it is.
I have experience of a swipe-card system from the most recent school in which I taught. Such a debit system is a great way of preventing stigma. Kids stick money on to it and build up money, while kids who get free meals simply hand over the card and the other kids will not know that they get free meals.
Some will hand them in and some will not.
Well, maybe. Approximately what proportion of schools currently operate cashless systems?
I do not know the exact figure, but we could probably get that information. Around 71 per cent of secondary schools and 40 per cent of primary schools have anonymised systems. Secondary schools use the majority of cashless systems, which are more appropriate in those schools because of the larger services that are available. We do not know the exact numbers, but I think that all the secondary schools in Glasgow use or intend to use such systems.
From my experience, I would certainly recommend such systems. I hope that they will be encouraged.
As members have no more questions, I thank the witnesses for attending the meeting. I am sure that this will be the beginning of meaningful engagement on the bill over the next few months.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
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Budget Process 2007-08