School meals funding shortfall
England’s school could face a projected £310m funding gap for school meals in the next academic year according to new research.
The analysis, involving the expertise of a social and political scientist at the University of Lincoln found free school meals (FSM) costs outstrip funding hitting the most deprived areas hardest.
This year, the UK Government brought in changes to the eligibility criteria for means tested FSM, meaning more than 600,000 pupils from households receiving Universal Credit would be eligible for them.
The research team, which also included Northumbria University and Alliance4Children, analysed open data from the Department for Education and modelled how the extension of FSM to newly eligible pupils, alongside existing recipients, would affect the budgets of state-funded primary and secondary schools.
At present, the government allocates £2.58 per eligible pupil per meal in England, rising to £2.61 in the 2025/26 academic year. However, the cost of catering has surged, with providers charging schools around £3.00 per meal on average, which is still below what would be needed to meet national School Food Standards.
The analysis indicates that adding pupils from households on Universal Credit to the current free-meal cohort would create a funding gap of more than £310 million across England in 2026/27, roughly equivalent to the annual salaries of over 7,700 teachers, unless swift action is taken. On average, primary schools would need to absorb an additional £11,708 from their budgets in 2026/27, while secondary schools would face an average shortfall of £25,565.
School headteachers have reported they are diverting teaching funds, cutting activities and leaving vacancies unfilled. Meanwhile, caterers estimate true meal costs at between £3.15 and £3.40, depending on contract size, driving uneven meal quality across schools.
Professor Paul Stretetsky, a social and political scientist at the University of Lincoln, explained: “Our findings are a clear cause for concern, and we would also highlight that this deficit is not evenly spread across England. Those schools with the highest numbers of students receiving free school meals are in the most disadvantaged areas, and they are the hardest hit in terms of deficit per pupil.
“To illustrate, if we look at the difference between the North East and the East of England, while a shortfall in free school meal funding to secondary schools in both regions have a significant deficit to their teaching and learning budgets, there are clear regional differences at the pupil level between regions, with a loss of £41 per pupil in the North East of England compared to a loss of £29 per pupil in the East of England, fuelling disparities between regions.”
Professor Greta Defeyter OBE, Director of the Healthy Living Lab and Dean for Social Mobility Policy Engagement at Northumbria University, added: “Our findings are startling. Inflation, rising food prices and increases in national insurance have all impacted on the overall cost to caterers for providing free school meals and many schools are needing to take money from their own individual teaching and learning budgets to top-up the difference between the funding they receive from the government and the amount they are charged by the caterer.”
J. Paul Wright, CEO of Alliance4Children, noted: “Free school meals act as a safety net for pupils, and when accompanied by quality teaching and learning, together they can reduce health and educational inequalities in our society. However, the amount of payment needed to top up free school meals is not distributed evenly across schools. In fact, the most deprived schools have to pay the most from their operating budgets. Thus, the shortfall in free school meal funding presents a source of significant social injustice between schools, and regions.”
The results of the study can be read online: www.northumbria.ac.uk/-/media/b9cc1638a20c4efabb6189a988454f19.ashx