Frank Field – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Frank Field on 2015-10-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the annual cost is of providing free school meals on schools; and what proportion of this sum is spent on universal infant free school meals.

Mr Sam Gyimah

The Department for Education does not hold information on the annual cost of providing benefits-based free school meals (FSM). It allocates the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) to local authorities on a per pupil basis. Local authorities distribute DSG to schools on the basis of a local formula, in which FSM can be used as a proxy for deprivation. It is then for schools to decide how to use their budget, including how much to allocate to pay for benefits-based free school meals.