Free School Meals - Freedom of information requests

Title or Description: Free School Meals
FOI Number: 15277
Date Received: 29/05/2021
Type of Request: FOI
Request or Question: Free school meals1. I would like to know what happens to the money when a child doesn't spend all/any of their free school meal allocation.2. Does this money go into council funds?
a)If not, where does it go?

3. How much unspent free school meal money was cleared from a pupils card and returned over the past 3 years?
a) And where did it go?

4. Do you give this information back to the Scottish government?

5. Do you return unspent funds back to scot gov?
Response: 1 and 2. In primary schools, free school meals are ordered via ParentPay and therefore only meals ordered are prepared. In secondary schools, a free school meal allowance is added to the young person's account each morning and any unspent allowance is removed from the account at the end of each day. Unspent allowances remain Council funds.

2a. N/A.

3-5. Free school meals forms part of the Council's core revenue support grant and is allocated through GAE which is a needs-based methodology used to allocate funding equitably amongst the LA's. During the last three years £126k of free school meals for secondary schools was unclaimed and retained to support the wider School Meals Service. No funds are therefore returned to the Scottish Government.