2. Delegation Process
because we saw the sense of what the heads were saying, that the system was unfair and the
authority have to find the money anyway.
2.32 Several LEAs, which had adopted free school meal entitlement formula for delegation,
reported losing control over a part of the budget which they had previously used to
fund other aspects of the meals service. The unspent free school meal budget was
previously retained centrally and used for other meal related investment. An LEA
officer, running a central meals service admitted that, with the money now allocated to
individual schools, she no longer had as much money to develop the service.
Now that we only get the money for each free school meal actually served rather than the
complete free school meal budget, we shall make a loss of around £120,000 this year.
Normally that money would have come back into the meals service and we could use that
money to provide a better quality meal. Now that that money is staying in school, we don’t
have any extra money to improve the service and we can’t invest in the service because that
money is staying in school.
Summary
2.33 Generally the administrative processes of delegation of school meals budgets had gone
smoothly for the sampled LEAs and schools. Most LEAs reported consulting with
schools before delegation and some had taken account of the views of schools when
reaching the final decision regarding delegation to primary schools. However at least
one case study school had been against delegation at the consultation stage but the LEA
had continued with universal delegation. At least 80% of LEAs decided to delegate the
budget to all primary schools.
2.34 There was evidence that many LEAs had reassured schools that delegation needed only
to be ‘a paper exercise’, making more work for the LEA dividing up the budgets but
having little or no effect on the schools. Schools were reassured that they would be able
to send their budgets straight back to the central contractor, there would be no
additional charge to the school and nothing would change.
2.35 Most LEAs had resolved issues of devising the funding formulae without difficulty
although there are a range of formulae in operation. The passivity of schools and
governors on this issue may have been linked to the size of the sums being delegated.
In LEAs where the only budget was for free school meal provision, and particularly in
LEAs and schools with only small proportions of entitled pupils, the annual amounts
delegated were almost insignificant within the total school budget. However in one
LEA, the formula for the budget had changed each year because of a lack of consensus
on the most appropriate to adopt.
2.36 Concerns that delegation of school meals budgets would give schools the opportunity
to use the money to finance other aspects of provision appear to have been justified.
Some schools have found themselves with sums unspent, particularly arising from
pupils not taking up their free school meal entitlement. The study suggests that these
savings were often absorbed into the general school budget.
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