Pepe Di’Iasio, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, responds to a report from the Education Policy Institute (EPI), which calls for all eligible families to be automatically registered by the government for free school meals.
“The expansion of free school meals, to include all children in households on universal credit, is a positive move that recognises there are children living in poverty who have been missing out.
“Moving to a national system of auto-enrolment would be the next logical step to ensure that everyone who is now eligible under the new criteria will actually receive a meal and the intended benefits. Auto-enrolment is something ASCL and many other organisations have been calling for for some time, and has been shown to work well at a local level. We see no reason why a national system of auto-enrolment cannot be established relatively straightforwardly. This is something that would make a big difference to vulnerable families.”