Free school meals (FSM) help support low-income families. We want to make sure that all entitled children in Devon don’t miss out on receiving these meals.
Pupils can receive free school meals if their family meets certain eligibility criteria set by government. Currently, families must apply for this support. In Devon, the quickest and easiest way to do this is through our Citizen Portal– where you’ll get an instant result.
But some families don’t apply. This may be because of:
- language barriers
- stigma (feeling embarrassed)
- no internet access
- not knowing if they’re eligible
This means families miss out on:
- up to £450 in savings per year
- supermarket vouchers in school holidays
- help with school uniforms
- access to free holiday clubs and food (HAF programme)
What’s changing?
We’re introducing an ‘opt-out’ rather than ‘opt-in’ system that uses existing public sector and county council records to automatically identify and register entitled children for free school meals. Families will no longer need to apply.
The process uses government and county council benefits-related data to identify families who qualify for free school meals. We then check if they’ve already registered, and if not, we can register them.
Families can still choose not to take part (this is called opting out). But if they do nothing, their child will be included.
More details about how this works are below.
Why are we doing this?
Auto-enrolment has already been successfully introduced in several areas across the UK to address the gap between the eligibility and uptake of free school meals, and the benefits are wide-reaching. These include:
- Children will have better access to nutritious meals, which supports concentration, attendance, and overall academic performance.
- Families face less financial pressure and food insecurity.
- Schools receive more funding and less administrative workload.
- The council advances its goals to reduce child poverty, promote equity, and improve service access.
What’s the process?
There are five main steps in our new auto-enrolment system:
- Collecting the data
We’re bringing together information from government and county council held records (such as the School Census and Local Welfare Provision) to help us find pupils who may be entitled to free school meals, but aren’t yet registered. - Checking the data
We will carefully review the combined data and look for families with school-aged children who receive certain government-specified benefits, as these pupils may qualify for free school meals. - Confirming eligibility
Next, we’ll run the list of potentially eligible pupils through the Department for Education’s eligibility checker. Any pupils who don’t qualify will be removed from the list. - Giving families the chance to opt out
Then, we’ll send schools and other education settings a list of eligible pupils and ask them to send a letter to each family explaining what free school meals are, and that we plan to register their child for the support. The letter also let’s families know that if they prefer that we didn’t do this, they can opt out by filling in a short online form. - Registering pupils
Once the opt-out period ends, we’ll remove the records of those families who opted out and register the rest up for the support through the usual Department for Education process.
Timescale
We’re working closely with schools, our IT teams, and national partners to implement this system securely and effectively.
We aim to start contacting families in the autumn term. But this depends on when we receive the government data we need. We’re still waiting for this.
We will keep this webpage updated with the latest information as the project progresses.