Free school meals supplementary grant: conditions of grant 2019 to 2020
Published 25 February 2020
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/free-school-meals-supplementary-grant-2019-to-2020/free-school-meals-supplementary-grant-conditions-of-grant-2019-to-2020
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: supplementary grant (FSMS) for the financial year beginning 1 April 2019.
FSMS 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) will pay the FSMS funds to local authorities on behalf of the Secretary of State for Education on 28 February 2020.
The following terms and conditions apply to the FSMS for the financial year beginning 1 April 2019.
You can also access the FSMS rates and eligibility.
FSMS allocations will be calculated for all schools who were open on 1 January 2020.
2. Allocation and payment to schools
The 2019 to 2020 FSMS allocations for each local authority’s maintained schools, as at 1 January 2020, are published alongside these conditions of grant.
Local authorities must pay the amounts shown for each school in the allocations table to each of the following that they are responsible for maintaining, or were responsible for maintaining at 1 January 2020:
- 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.
We pay FSMS to academies and free schools on 9 March 2020.
FSMS 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 FSMS funds
Local authorities must ensure that their maintained schools only spend FSMS for the purposes of the school, or for the benefit of pupils registered at other maintained schools or PRUs.
FSMS funds do not have to be spent by maintained schools, PRUs or hospital schools, in the financial year beginning 1 April 2019, they may carry some or all FSMS funds forward to future financial years.
4. Certification
Local authorities will be required to certify that they have passed on the correct amount of funding to schools or, where funding has been spent centrally, that it has been spent in line with these conditions of grant. We will issue a certification form in April 2020.
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 FSMS by the ESFA to a local authority shall be repaid by the local authority upon on such terms and conditions as the ESFA or 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.