WOKINGHAM pupils will receive free school meals throughout 2021. That’s the promise made at a virtual meeting of Wokingham Borough Council held on Thursday, January 21.
Cllr UllaKarin Clark, Executive Member for Children’s Services, said: “I am pleased to announce that the Council is going to continue to cover the costs of free school meals during the school holidays in 2021”.
She said that the council is using Government grants to cover the costs during the coronavirus pandemic.
But the council wanted this support to be extended.
“The Leader (Cllr John Halsall) has joined me in writing to the Secretary of State for Education not just to ask for the expansion of free school meals to be permanent for those with no recourse to public funds but we have also gone further in asking that consideration be given for an uplift in Universal Credit to make sure no child goes without food.
“In addition to this we are asking that the free school meal provision for primary school children is permanently extended to include all primary school children and not just those in Reception, Year 1 and year 2.”
The council would also continue to work with local organisations to make sure no child in the borough goes hungry.
Cllr Clark also said that some early years settings had tapped into the council’s covid business support grant as they had been impacted by the loss of income from parents.
“To ensure settings will still be in business once we have come out of lockdown, we are therefore putting in place a new Wokingham Borough Council funded grant scheme to support such providers with gaps in their funding. We will shortly be providing guidance to settings on this.”
