The regulations state that you cannot qualify for free school meals if you receive WTC. You have to receive CTC and have annual taxable income of less than £13,900. Advisers saying to me that this is unfair; Some families on WTC actually getting less income than some similar sized families on IS/JSA; WTC is supposed to be in place to protect low paid working people.

Just wonder if anyone else has any comments on this - any pointers. Many thanks, Kevin.

Think its a throwback.

You used to get free school meals if the family was on IS or Ib-JSA: ie no-one in the family working ft. This also produced the anomaly that children of people in low paid work didn't qualify for free school meals, while others whose parents had possibly higher disposable income from IS/JSA did qualify.

If I remember correctly, this came about alongside theintroduction of IS in 1988, and also when the "low income" qualification for free meals was abolished, along with the discretion for LEAs to provide free meals to anyone other than those qualifying through IS. It was said at the time I think that the Family Credit also introduced then was calibrated to include an element to compensate working families for this loss. WTC as the successor to FC theoretically carries the same element of compensation, of course.

Given the current level of interest among the chattering classes in the nutritional standards of school meals, it might be opportune to try also to open up to debate the question of a sensible criterion for free ones - like universally available, maybe? Anyone know whether CPAG have any plans on this front?

Somehow managed to conflate a couple of points there...second para should have read something like this:

You used to get free school meals if the family was on Supplementary Benefit (not in work) or Family Income Supplement (in work) or if you qualified on a "low income" test. They were then restricted to children of parents getting IS, ie not in f-t work, when SB was replaced by IS and FIS by Family Credit. This created the anomaly that children of people in low paid work didn't qualify for free school meals, while others whose parents had possibly higher disposable income from IS/JSA did qualify.

Thanx to the friend who rang up to tell me my original post was gibberish - you know who you are!

Not quite understanding the point that a similar sized family on IS/ibJSA might have more income than a family on low income from earnings. Any calc.s that I have done have brought low earning family up to higher income level with WTC. If you can give us an example of where earnings plus WTC would equal less than IS income would be greatly appreciated.

Various possible scenarios, but the commonest is someone getting mortgage help in their IS, compared to someone in low paid work/tax credits having to meet all the mortgage out of income, and having less for other living expenses - including the kids' dinners - as a result.

The friend who criticised my first offering in this thread now says that I still haven’t made myself as clear on the subject as I sometimes do after a few pints. Apparently my employment history and personal obsessions are making me assume too much shared background among rightsnet colleagues, and I’ve been leaving stuff out….

My first local government job was as a very junior clerk in the school meals section of a LEA in 1968. I was in that job for only about a year, but for years afterwards as I moved around other jobs and eventually into welfare rights, I was interested in school meals policies. As far as I recall:

Free meals used to depend on a low income test; and families getting Supplementary Benefit were passported past that test. So were those who got Family Income Supplement when that was introduced in the 1970s. I think – but I’m not absolutely certain – that LEAs also had discretion to improve the statutory low income test and make it more generous; and to waive it altogether in short term crisis situations like parents being ill, even if income during the illness was above the threshold.

Even for those who had to pay for their dinners, there was a statutory fixed, and fairly nominal, price, which I think was a shilling a day when I was at school, still a shilling when I worked on that section, and also for some years after that.

There were also minimum nutritional standards.

The fixed price was abolished in the 1981Education Act, to enable some LEAs to make cost savings by raising the price. I think the nutritional standards went at the same time, but my recall of that is less clear. It may have been later in the 80s.

The free meals rules changed in 1988. The low income test was abolished. Supplementary Benefit was replaced by Income Support, and the passport to free meals was now only available to families getting IS. This excluded, for example, children of people on Invalidity Benefit or Widowed Mothers Allowance who didn’t necessarily qualify for IS, but could previously have got free meals by the low income route.

Also in 1988 Family Income Supplement was replaced by Family Credit. The previous passported entitlement to free meals for FIS claimants was not continued into FC. Allegedly the FC rates included compensation for this loss. In theory therefore this compensation has been carried forward into the successor benefits of Working Families Tax Credit and, from 2003, Working Tax Credit. This is where the doctrine comes from that WTC disqualifies from free school meals.

But 2003 and the new Tax Credits system did at least restore entitlement to families not in work who qualify for CTC with an income below £13k. So the children of the incapacitated and the bereaved parents, etc, can once again benefit from free meals by a new low income route. But this still leaves the anomaly that low income working families can’t.

I think that the only sensible policy should be to provide good healthy school lunches, and make them free for all. It might look expensive but there’s shedloads of research evidence that a healthy childhood diet saves squillions in NHS etc costs. I remember reading one report (but can’t remember where) that showed that women who were well nourished as girls produce healthier babies than those who weren’t (bet that surprises you!). After a couple of generations of this it would be like the Chancellor getting compound interest back on the investment in free school lunches.

And if a national policy is not obtainable, I think that the discretion to fix a very low price (penny a meal?) is still available to LEAs who want and can afford it.

Come on Jamie: broaden out the campaign to cover price as well as quality…

Many thanks Gerry, and apologies for causing you grief and hassle - but I think your comments clearly expand on my very brief opening comment. I have checked with CPAG and they do indeed have a campaign for universal free school meals, so I will be following up on this also. Like your closing gambit - might drop Jamie a line on this!!