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Chapter Seven: Oppportunities Offered by Guidance
The Scottish Executive issues guidance once a year to local authorities on the eligibility criteria for free school meals.
7.1 Awareness of guidance received from the Scottish Executive
Almost all of our respondents noted that they receive information from the Scottish Executive in relation to eligibility criteria.
"In April we got an update on the new annual income level and the other changes required for eligibility. Prior to this though, I don't recall getting any regular information or guidelines, but now it's every year. The updates are very helpful, and there have been only a few cases where we weren't aware of changes to benefits. I think maybe, this has occurred since the new tax credit system came in, because it's a lot more complicated."
However, two of the respondents were unaware of any information or guidance that was received from the Scottish Executive. They assumed this was because the information from the Scottish Executive goes directly to another department within the local authority and this information is then not passed onto them. As one of them noted,
"We don't get contacted that much to be perfectly honest with you. I think we did last year, but even like for instance, when the threshold figures change every year for working tax credit and child tax credit, we're never notified. We always have to go on a wild goose chase and try and find out for ourselves what the figures are."
7.2 Usefulness of guidance and how guidance can be improved
While the annual update on eligibility criteria is required by all local authorities, many respondents noted that there were opportunities for the Scottish Executive to provide further information in relation to free school meals. In general, this related to the potential usefulness of a central body such as the Executive providing examples of good practice being utilised in other local authorities and sharing this information across all local authorities.
Some respondents also noted that they had queries over legislation impacting on the provision of information such as the Data Protection Act and that more clarification of its impact would be useful.
"Well, we get the updates - the changes in the child tax credit, and it's obviously there from the Scottish Executive to inform if there was a change in the criteria for entitlement to free school meals. I don't think there is much on how you manage that, how proactive you should be, what system you could use to do that. I suppose it's also about making sure that you're kept up to date, and are aware of the supporting benefits and obviously aware of any Data Protection issues, and things like that come into it too."
During the course of the interviews, a number of suggestions were made as to how the Scottish Executive could have more of role to play in the free school meals process:
- Provide advice as to how local authorities can ensure that all those who are eligible become registered for free school meals;
- To ensure consistency in processes adopted;
- To identify ways in which a much greater degree of information sharing can take place between different local authority departments and different government departments;
- Provide advice on how to work more closely with the benefits agencies/ DWP/ DSS;
- Provide information or examples of best practice as to the most effective way in which local authorities should carry out production of their annual reports which show the figures of those entitled and of those registered for free school meals.
- Counteract inconsistencies in the application of current eligibility criteria and standardise these across all local authorities.
Positively, it was mentioned by several interviewees that they had on occasion phoned the Scottish Executive with a query. The nature of these queries varied from checking on the eligibility criteria to making an appeal for special cases to be granted. From those who had this additional contact with the Scottish Executive, it was acknowledged that the advice and support received had been helpful and staff were approachable.
The role that could be played by the Scottish Executive as a central body helping local authorities to share information and examples of best practice is of importance given that only one of our respondents claimed to have any contact with their counterpart in other local authorities. Overall, it appears that local authorities work very much on an individual basis and do not formally share best practice across borders or ask how other authorities approach various aspects of the process surrounding registration for free school meals.
In summary, staff in local authorities who deal with the free school meals process would like the Scottish Executive to take on a central role in the dissemination of information and sharing of good practice across all local authorities.
While there are some innovative initiatives being utilised in different local authorities, there is currently no means by which the success of these is shared with other councils.
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