Joint Letter to the First Minister: School Meal Debt
Dear First Minister,
We are a group of children’s charities, anti-poverty organisations and third sector organisations urging you to end school meal debt and hidden school hunger for good.
In a country as rich as Scotland it is shaming that any child is burdened with debt or goes hungry at all, let alone at school.
We applauded the action taken by your predecessor last year to tackle school meal debt by introducing the one-off, one year school meal debt fund.
This was an important first step in responding to an issue affecting around 30,000 children and their families struggling with a UK social security system that doesn’t cover the cost of life’s essentials, the ongoing cost of living pressures and financial uncertainty.
We know the removal of school meal debt has been a significant relief for families in the grip of financial insecurity and who are too often worrying about how they will feed their children at home or at school.
However, despite the school meal debt fund and the commitment of both the Scottish Government and local authorities to tackle this issue, we continue to see school meal debt affecting thousands of low-income families across Scotland.
Families who benefitted from having school meal debt cancelled have seen that debt begin to build again.
This is because families’ circumstances have not changed.
Families are still struggling to pay bills, to buy food or to provide their children with the things that they need.
The result is that school meal debt persists and will only get worse in time as so many families remain trapped in poverty.
Therefore, we urge you to use the upcoming Scottish Budget to end school meal debt and hidden school hunger for good by:
- Making the existing one-off school meal debt fund permanent (until it is no longer needed)
- Increasing free school meal eligibility to all low-income families receiving the Scottish Child Payment to prevent school meal debt in the first place
The expansion of free school meals must also be the first step towards full universal free school meals for all pupils in the future which we know can benefit children’s wellbeing, their ability to learn and reduce stigma.
We believe by taking these actions no child will ever again be burdened with school meal debt and struggling families will no longer have to worry about their child ever going hungry at school.
We urge you to do the right thing for Scotland’s children by making sure no child has to endure the shame of school meal debt ever again.
Yours,
SallyAnn Kelly OBE, CEO, Aberlour Children’s Charity
Mike Dailly, Principal Solicitor, Govan Law Centre
Satwat Rehman, CEO, One Parent Families Scotland
Pater Kelly, Director, Poverty Alliance
Penny Morris, Head of Scotland, Trussell
Cheryl Ward, CEO, Family Fund
Amy Woodhouse, Chief Executive, Parenting Across Scotland
Mary Glasgow, Chief Executive, Children First
Meg Thomas, Acting Chief Executive, Forces Children Scotland
Claire Burns, Director, CELCIS
Dr Marsha Scott, CEO, Scottish Women’s Aid
Dr Lindsey MacDonald, Chief Executive, Magic Breakfast
Sara Redmond, Chief Officer for Development, The Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland
Alison Bavidge, National Director, Scottish Association of Social Work
Martin Crewe, Director, Barnardo's Scotland
Joanna Barrett, Associate Head of Policy and Public Affairs, NSPCC Scotland
Fiona Steel, National Director Scotland, Action for Children
Fiona Dyer, Director, Children and Young People's Centre for Justice
Jude Turbyne, Chief Executive Officer, Children in Scotland
Nicola Killean, Children and Young People's Commissioner Scotland