Free school meals supplementary grant: conditions of grant 2018 to 2019
Updated 24 February 2021
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1. Introduction
The Secretary of State for Education is providing financial assistance to maintained schools and high needs schools in the form of the free school meals (FSM) supplementary grant for the financial year beginning 1 April 2018.
The FSM supplementary grant provides funding for schools to help them meet the costs of providing extra free school meals, due to the roll out of universal credit, before the lagged funding system catches up.
The Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) pays the FSM supplementary grant funds for 2018 to 2019 to local authorities on behalf of the Secretary of State for Education on 28 February 2018.
The rates and eligibility are set out in the FSM supplementary grant guidance.
Allocations are calculated for all schools who were open on 1 January 2019.
The following terms and conditions apply to the FSM supplementary grant for the financial year beginning 1 April 2018.
2. Allocation and payment to schools
The 2018 to 2019 allocations for each local authority’s maintained schools, as at 1 January 2019, are set out in the FSM supplementary grant allocations tables.
Local authorities must pay each school they are responsible for maintaining, or were responsible for maintaining at 1 January 2019, the amounts shown for each school in the allocations tables. This includes:
- maintained primary and secondary schools
- maintained special schools
- pupil referral units (PRUs)
- all through maintained schools
Local authorities must comply with this condition irrespective of any deficit relating to the expenditure of the school’s budget share.
The FSM supplementary grant is not part of schools’ budget shares and is not part of the individual schools budget. It is not to be counted for the purpose of calculating the minimum funding guarantee.
3. Permitted use of FSM supplementary grant funds
Local authorities must ensure that their maintained schools only spend the FSM supplementary grant in the following ways:
- for the purposes of the school
- for the benefit of pupils registered at other maintained schools or PRUs
FSM supplementary grant funds do not have to be spent by maintained schools, PRUs or hospital schools, in the financial year beginning 1 April 2018, they may carry some or all of the funds forward to future financial years.
4. Certification
Each local authority will be required to certify to ESFA that they have complied with these terms and conditions. We will set out the arrangements for certification in April 2019.
5. Variation
The basis for allocation of this grant may be varied by the Secretary of State from those set out above.
6. Overpayments
Any overpayment of the FSM supplementary grant by ESFA to a local authority shall be repaid by the local authority upon on such terms and conditions as ESFA or the Secretary of State for Education shall determine.
7. Further information
Books and other documents and records relating to the recipient’s accounts shall be open to inspection by the Secretary of State and by the Comptroller and Auditor General.
The Comptroller and Auditor General may, under Section 6 of the National Audit Act 1983, carry out examinations into the economy, efficiency and effectiveness with which the recipient has used its resources in discharging its grant-aided activities.
Schools and local authorities shall provide information as may be required by the Secretary of State to determine whether it has complied with these conditions.