Deputy Prime Minister announces funding information for free school meals plan

5 Dec 2013

The Deputy Prime Minister’s office has now released details of the Free School Meals plan, to be confirmed in the Autumn Statement today.

Free school meals will be available for every child in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 in state-funded schools, beginning in September 2014.

As part of the Autumn Statement, the government will be providing revenue funding of £450m for September 2014 to March 2015, and £635m in 2015-16 to the Department for Education to fund this commitment. This is new money going into the Department for Education budget.

The government is also making £150m of capital available to ensure that schools can build new kitchens or increase dining capacity where necessary. £70m of this will be new money from HMT, and around £80m will be from unspent Department for Education maintenance budgets.

You can read the full story online here.