19/03/21
5 min read
Childhood hunger and food insecurity hit the headlines during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our Education Programme Head, Ruth Maisey explains why policy makers now need to move beyond temporary fixes to longer-term solutions.
Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been huge public debate regarding food insecurity and provision of free school meals. However, while COVID-19 has highlighted and exacerbated this issue, the problem is not new.
In 2016 the Food Foundation reported on UN data which estimated that 8.4 million people in the UK had insufficient food. This is troubling because the implications of hunger and food insecurity are far reaching, including adverse health outcomes, lower educational attainment and widening inequality. Indeed, teachers have observed the impact of hunger, which can make it harder for children to concentrate, to make rational decisions, and to regulate their behaviour. Policy makers must therefore address childhood hunger as part of the levelling up agenda in the wake of the pandemic.
The Nuffield Foundation has funded a range of work that can inform the direction of policy. Since 2015, we have funded the Food Foundation, to support its endeavour to identify solutions to the growing challenges facing the UK food system and the implications for children. In 2017, a Nuffield-funded evaluation by the Institute for Social and Economic Research found that England’s Universal Infant Free School Meal policy:
- reduced household food expenditure.
- reduced children’s bodyweight, moving more children into a health BMI range.
- improved rates of absence from school.
- may have improved attainment.
The pandemic has presented a major challenge to the provision of free school meals. A report by the Education Policy Institute (EPI) stated:
“School closures meant that the vast majority of the 1.7 million pupils across the UK who would usually receive free school meals during the day in term time could no longer access these. For many children, the meal that they receive at school is a key part of their diet, and its absence could put a significant strain on families’ already stretched budgets.”
At the same time as temporarily losing access to free school meals because of school closures, lower-income families were also hit by food prices rises in the first month of lockdown. Indeed, overall lockdown led to higher expenditure for lower income families, whilst many higher income families experienced a reduction in their spending.
However, the policy response to re-establishing free school meals differed across the four nations of the UK: England attempted to implement a national voucher scheme, whilst Wales and Scotland allowed local discretion in delivery of support, and Northern Ireland sent direct payments to parents. Teething problems in England meant families in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland had better access to timely and appropriate support.
Politicians extended free school meals into the 2020 holidays, following Marcus Rashford’s holiday hunger campaign. However, delayed political announcements meant that families faced huge uncertainty about what support would be available, and until when. While England’s dalliance with food parcels in autumn 2020 also met with considerable controversy due to the inadequacy and poor value for money of some offerings. More recently, EPI contrasted the extended duration of free school meals support offered by Wales and Northern Ireland until Easter 2022, with more limited offerings in England and Scotland only due to run until Christmas 2021 and Easter 2021 respectively.
Ultimately the policy responses across the UK can be characterised as a series of temporary solutions which fail to address a chronic problem. The National Food Strategy recognises the need for a longer-term solution in its recommendations to:
- Expand eligibility for free school meals.
- Extend the Holiday Activity and Food Programme.
- Increase the value of Healthy Start vouchers and expand eligibility.
Policy options for improving children’s food provision
We held a webinar in December 2020 to explore policy options for improving children’s food provision in the longer term.
A coherent offering
The current support available to families in the UK is rather incoherent. For instance, in England means tested vouchers are available to families with children aged under four, there are universal free school meals for infants, and means tested school meals for junior and secondary children. In addition, free breakfasts and holiday food provision are only available in some places. A more comprehensive offering that looks holistically across age groups would be preferable.
Universal or targeted food provision
Universal Infant Free School Meals has been shown to increase take-up of meals, even amongst those who would have been eligible under a means tested system, and reduce children’s BMI. If these BMI reductions were maintained, then this could reduce longer-term health spending. Importantly, a universal benefit also provides support to those who need it without conferring judgement. However, a universal approach can strain capacity and is undoubtedly expensive in the short-term. More limited expansions in scope may be more politically feasible (the IFS present indicative costs of some options here).
Expanded eligibility for free school meals
In England, the household income threshold for free school meal eligibility is currently £7,400 per year meaning that a sizeable number of households are food insecure and yet not eligible. The main objections to expanding eligibility in this way seem to be the direct costs combined with the associated increase in costs to pupil premium spending. However, pupil premium funding could presumably be decoupled from free school meal eligibility.
Holiday provision
The Holiday Activity and Food Programme will be expanded across the whole of England in 2021. This is certainly welcome and will go some way to mitigating the effects of the pandemic, particularly since the benefits of holiday programmes are wider than alleviating hunger. For holiday programmes may also improve physical activity, and offer cultural and educational activities to help attenuate summer learning loss.
Breakfast and/or lunch
There is evidence that free breakfasts can improve attainment amongst young children, hence government support for policies such as the Free Breakfast in Primary Schools scheme in Wales, and the National School Breakfast Programme in England. Funding for the latter was due to run out imminently but the Department for Education have recently announced a two-year extension. Ideally, no-one would have to choose between offering hungry children lunch or breakfast, but in a resource constrained environment, this is likely to remain part of the debate.
Cash, vouchers or direct provision of food
The choice of cash, vouchers or direct provision of food is an important consideration, with trade-offs between autonomy for families and control over nutritional quality. For example, food standards for school meals help ensure that nutritional quality is high and Healthy Start vouchers have been effective in improving the nutritional composition of household shopping baskets. So, while cash transfers provide families with more flexibility and are potentially more accessible, there are nutritional advantages to the direct provision of food or distribution of vouchers. The caveat here is that these benefits may not be realised if funding is inadequate or if food standards are not adhered to in practice, as was seen with food parcels during the pandemic. Evidence suggests that some schools do not meet the required food standards and there may be a need to monitor compliance as is already the case in Scotland.
Responding to the challenge of food insecurity
It is right that some immediate solutions were put in place during the pandemic, but we need to move beyond temporary relief and emergency food parcels. Many would argue that there is a moral obligation for an affluent nation to ensure that children do not go hungry, and that it is not right that families should need to rely on foodbanks. So, UK policy makers should look to introduce policies that strike a good balance between addressing poverty, hunger and inequality, obesity reduction and cost. However, it is also incumbent upon us as social researchers to provide government with evidence of the wide-ranging benefits of addressing food insecurity, to add the social and economic argument for public spending in this area.
In their manifesto the Scottish National Party have pledged to extend free school meals to all primary children, and to provide free school meals during term time and during the holidays. This is a very comprehensive offering, particularly since it includes both breakfast and lunch. So, Scotland are looking to set the bar high. Ultimately, it is likely that the four nations of the UK will respond rather differently to this common challenge. As such, it may be that in future some comparison of outcomes across the UK nations will be helpful in demonstrating which policies prove most effective.
About the author
Ruth is a Programme Head at the Nuffield Foundation. She leads the development and management of the research portfolio relating to early years and primary education, focusing on children’s skills and capabilities, teaching quality, and educational disadvantage.
Prior to joining the Nuffield Foundation, Ruth was a Research Director at NatCen Social Research where she designed and managed evaluations, and other quantitative and mixed-method studies in the fields of children, families and work.
