Councils and the voluntary and community sector play a key role in tackling food poverty. This includes the provision of crisis support and wrap-around support to improve people’s long-term financial resilience, as well as initiatives that improve access to affordable, healthy food; improve local food sustainability and reduce food waste, and teach residents about nutrition and how to cook.
Food partnerships:
Food Partnerships have been established in over 100 cities, districts, counties and boroughs across the country, which are working to create healthier and more sustainable food systems. These partnerships bring together local stakeholders – including the council and voluntary and community organisations – to take a cross-cutting approach to food insecurity, food sustainability, public health and wider financial exclusion issues that lead to food poverty.
- The Middlesbrough Food Partnership, which is supported by Middlesbrough Council, is working towards creating a local food system where people can eat good quality, healthy food that is easy to buy, offers value for money and is produced locally wherever possible. The partnership has worked with the council to develop and implement a food poverty action plan and have established local initiatives to improve access to the local welfare safety net, increase the uptake of Healthy Start vouchers and drive up the number of local retailers which accept Healthy Start vouchers.
Local welfare support:
Councils are currently delivering the latest round of the Household Support Fund grant. This is often in addition to their own existing Local Welfare Assistance Schemes.
Local crisis support plays an important role in addressing immediate need and councils continue to offer targeted support to alleviate the pressures facing low-income households. For example, many councils in England are supporting families entitled to Free School Meals during the school holidays. This is usually via a cash transfer or supermarket voucher that can be used at a variety of retailers.
Alongside, all councils are also offering an application-based element of local welfare, that is available to households who are struggling but not necessarily entitled to FSMs. This support will be crucial in the coming months for families that are just above the £7,400 threshold and struggling to put food on the table.
We continue to press the Government to restore local welfare funding and put it on a permanent footing. As the high cost of living and rising poverty continues, crisis support, alongside reform to the mainstream benefit system, will continue to play an important roll in ensuring that all households are food secure.
Local free school meals offers:
Despite significant budget pressures, several English councils have made the decision provide a universal offer of free school meals for all primary school pupils in their areas.
For example, since 2013 Southwark Council have run a Free Healthy School Meals (FHSM) programme has universally provided a free school lunch for all primary school students in Key Stage 2, to tackle food poverty and childhood obesity. This supplements the central government-funded, means-tested Free School Meals (FSM) and Universal Infant Free School Meals (UIFSM). 38 percent of children in Southwark live in poverty, yet many whose families earn above the £7,400 a year threshold would not be eligible for free school meals under the national offer.
Research by the University of Essex, which studied the impact of universal primary free school meal provision in Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Newham and Islington, found that the schemes have helped to reduce the prevalence of childhood obesity (by 9.3 percent among Reception children and 5.6 percent among Year 6 children on average) and help families cope with the cost of living, saving them £37 per child per month on average.