Thousands of children in Manchester to get food vouchers for free school meals over Christmas
Manchester has been allocated £2.5m by the government as part of a Covid-19 winter grant.
Around 43,000 vulnerable children, young people and families in Manchester who are eligible for free school meals will receive vouchers towards the cost of food over Christmas.
Manchester has been allocated £2.5m by the government as part of a Covid-19 winter grant for those affected by the pandemic who are expected to struggle during the holidays.
The £170m national grant was announced in November after Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford’s campaign to fight child food poverty forced a policy U-turn from Boris Johnson.
Funding will cover the two-week Christmas break as well as the one-week holiday during the February half-term next year.
Major supermarkets have been asked to provide vouchers worth £15 each, bringing the total value to £1.9m, to cover the three weeks of holiday.
Most of the money in Manchester will be passed to schools to hand out to families entitled to benefit-related free school meals.
Around 32,000 children and young people fall within this category, a number which has increased by 2,000 since the Covid-19 outbreak and is expected to grow even further in the coming months.
A report due to go before the council’s executive on Wednesday says: “Although it is acknowledged that there are many benefits to making a cash payment to families, previous experience has shown that this is resource intensive to set up and more expensive to administer.
“The vouchers approach will enable the Council to maximise reach but which will also be less resource intensive, minimise administration costs and ensure that as much of this grant as possible goes directly to our families.”
During the October half-term the council set aside £15 for any child eligible for free school meals through a welfare provision scheme, of which there were 28,000 at the time.
While it was positively received by schools, only 5,800 applications have been made to the scheme which has paid out just under £100k.
The report says: “ Learning from this scheme shows that when families are required to apply for this funding they do not always claim and the take up is much lower than those eligible.
“In addition, it is very labour intensive and costly to administer – over half term 20 staff were required to administer the scheme.”
The new voucher scheme will also help the thousands sixth-formers and nursery-age children who currently do not receive free school meals but are eligible.
Children of families that are classed as no recourse to public funds, as well as those leaving care, will come under the scope of the grant as well.
College students who were previously on free school meals are not covered by the grant, but the council will give up to £150k for colleges to set up their own support schemes.
A further £132k will support the council’s food response team, which was set up in March in response to the outbreak, over the winter.
The report, which asks the executive to agree to the allocation of the Covid-19 winter grant, has been recommended for approval.