Current status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 19 November 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-30645 by Jenny Gilruth on 8 November 2024, whether it has completed its analysis of bids to the school meal debt fund and followed up with local authorities on the information provided and, if so, whether it will confirm how many (a) children and (b) families had their school meal debt written off as a result of this fund, broken down by local authority area.
The local authorities who received support to clear their known school meal debt to 31 March 2024 have now reported on the funding they received. While this report will be published in due course, it is clear that local authorities collect data in different ways and therefore it is not possible to differentiate between the number of children and families funding has helped. However, from reports we believe that in excess of 70,000 instances of support were provided to children and families by this fund.