On Tuesday 22 July, over 200 professionals across the sector attended the LGA’s webinar on the recent changes to Free School Meals (FSM) eligibility and the opportunities for councils to utilise auto-enrolment.
On Tuesday 22 July, over 200 professionals across the sector attended the LGA’s webinar on the recent changes to Free School Meals (FSM) eligibility and the opportunities for councils to utilise auto-enrolment, hearing from FixOurFood, Bremner & Co, The Food Foundation, Feeding Britain, Basis, Devon County Council, and Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council. If you missed the webinar, you can access the recording!
Myles Bremner, CEO of Bremner and Co and chair of the webinar, opened by praising the “herculean efforts that hundreds of councils up and down the country are now doing to implement localised solutions that are best for them”. Myles outlined the national policy changes including eligibility expanding to all families on Universal Credit from September 2026, the end to transitional protections, and changes to the Eligibility Checking Service. These changes present a major opportunity to increase uptake of FSM and highlight the need for a national approach to auto-enrolment.
The evolving policy and legislative context of auto-enrolment
To kick off the main discussion, we heard from Andrew Forsey OBE, National Director of Feeding Britain. Andrew celebrated the recent expansion of FSM to all children in households on Universal Credit and argued that the next step should be a focus on national auto-enrolment as “with a wider group of children being eligible, none should be allowed to miss out on free school meals”.
Alongside a group of 29 councils and the Healthy Living Lab at Northumbria University, Feeding Britain ran a pilot scheme to test how to implement auto-enrolment in accordance with current legislation. They utilised existing channels of communication between councils and families, such as welfare application forms, to ask families for their consent to be automatically considered for FSM. While many authorities saw increased registrations, challenges remained that prevented maximum uptake. Not all eligible families are in contact with their local council or complete local welfare forms, some live in different areas from where their children attend school, and the absence of clear national guidance continues to create uncertainty around data sharing and legal responsibilities. As a result, Feeding Britian urge Government to set a national auto-enrolment scheme, and for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to utilise the Universal Credit application form to allow families to consent to auto-enrolment.
Andrew concluded his segment by urging guests to focus on Government’s upcoming Child Poverty Strategy in Autumn and to proactively raise awareness of the impact that auto-enrolment for FSM would have on alleviating child poverty.
What does the research suggest?
Our next speaker, Professor Maria Bryant from the University of York, delved into the action-orientated research they are conducting into auto-enrolment for FSM at FixOurFood, in collaboration with Bremner and Co and the Food Foundation. They have engaged with over 100 councils through in-depth interviews and surveys to understand what councils are currently doing, the challenges, and the solutions. Their third survey on evaluating the impact of auto-enrolment on FSM registrations is currently live and can be filled in.
They are in the late stages of this research project and the final report will outline their findings regarding the current auto-enrolment landscape. Professor Bryant outlined some initial findings, including that councils implementing auto-enrolment have seen an average of approximately 1,000 new FSM registrations. Whilst these are just initial findings, they demonstrate the sizeable impact that auto-enrolment can have. From engaging with councils who are successfully running auto-enrolment schemes, early research findings highlight the importance of senior leadership buy-in, cross department collaboration, and peer learning. The team developed a practical, free to use FixourFood toolkit to help local authorities set-up and implement auto-enrolment, which has evolved with the support of councils sharing best practices and templates.
How are councils navigating implementation of FSM?
We then heard from two councils to demonstrate how auto-enrolment is being implemented at a local level.
Neil Keen, School Admission Manager at Debon County Council, and Lindsay Cook, Consultant at Basis, gave some insights into how they have worked towards implementing an opt-out auto-enrolment system. Their approach uses local welfare provision data from the DWP and matches this against school records using Capita systems and fuzzy-matching tools. They then send opt-out letters through schools as they have pre-established and strong relationships with families. Lindsay stressed that while front-loaded with effort, the process becomes manageable once automated systems are in place and that ultimately “the outcomes and the benefits to children and families massively outweigh the effort required”.
Rebecca Saunders Thompson, Project Coordinator at Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council, then went on to share the pilot project they ran which resulted in “over 300 pupils added to our FSM register and over £400,000 per year in pupil premium”. The council utilised data from the Low Income Family Tracker, issued opt-out letters, and then worked with schools across the borough to complete registration before the spring census. Rebecca highlighted the importance of working collaboratively across council teams and recommended using a two-track model where some schools let the council complete FSM registration and others do it in-house based on the provided lists.
The two different approaches to auto-enrolment showcase the local innovation and drive towards making sure every eligible child is given access to FSM.
What now?
After the engaging sessions from our speakers and a lively Q&A discussion, Myles closed the session by urging delegates to continue pressing national government for a universal FSM auto-enrolment system. While local innovation has already made a significant impact, it needs to be supported by national policy changes - particularly in the upcoming Child Poverty Strategy.