Dear Free School Meals Disability Inclusion Campaign supporters, 

Today, I have good news to share with you: the campaign’s legal action has been successful! The Secretary of State has replied to our human rights lawyer’s pre-action letter and conceded:

Pre action protocol letter

This is great news for all families of children with EOTAS* who currently receive no help, despite low income or age eligibility. The Secretary of State’s reply should also help families with children at state-funded,  private, specialist schools (where there is no canteen on site). Our human rights lawyer, Alex Rook commented:

“We are of course delighted that the Secretary of State has conceded that the current position is potentially discriminatory and is taking urgent steps to rectify the position. We would advise all families of disabled children, who have EOTAS* packages, who think that they would otherwise qualify for a free school meal to get in touch with their local authority and ask that urgent arrangements are now made, so that they are treated the same as families whose children are able to attend school. It is also particularly pleasing to be able to demonstrate once again the everyday benefits to the UK being a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights. Given the acceptance that there may otherwise be a breach of Article 14, I am hopeful that we will be happy with the new guidance, but let’s see.” 

Last week, Contact charity arranged a debate in Westminster Hall. Members of parliament, from three political parties and seventeen constituencies, attended the event. 

Ian Byrne, MP for West Derby, led the debate. He said:

“Over 100,000** eligible disabled children are missing out on their free school lunch, which is truly shocking... Disabled children and their families are already more likely to be living in poverty, due to the difficulties of juggling care and work. Research shows they have also been disproportionately affected by cost-of-living pressures”. 

Ian Bryne also joined me live, on Sky News breakfast television, to discuss the campaign and the thousands of children unfairly missing out:

Sky News video clip 

The Department for Education is now preparing new guidance and anticipates issuing this in March 2024.

We look forward to seeing the new policy and hope that it will:

• explicitly inform schools and local authorities of their duty;
• give clear examples of fair, practical and supportive reasonable adjustments;
• specify how solutions will be funded;
• include all children with SEN, medical need or disability.

I would like to thank the parent-carers, who were willing to take this to court; the human rights lawyers (Steve Broach and Alex Rook); Contact charity, the online parent/guardian carers group admin team (Jane Davis and Jane Waters), the MPs who took part in the debate, Sky News, CrowdJustice and every person who contributed to the crowdfunding.  

Without your generous donations, I would not have been able to steer this campaign into taking legal action. This was an instrumental step towards change, clarity and accountability. 

Thank you so much!

Natalie Hay 

Disability Inclusion (campaign founder and leader)

* EOTAS (Education Other Than At School) is a special education package arranged and paid for by the local authority because it is agreed that it is inappropriate for a child to be taught in any school or education setting. The LA arranges the package to be delivered somewhere else, for example at home. The child is not on a school roll, but the LA must arrange and pay for the provision. EOTAS is different to elective home education where the LA is not responsible for meeting any of the costs or providing any support.  According to the latest DfE figures, there are 8,400 children with a package of EOTAS in England. 

** According to leading disability charity Contact, 164,520 children, in the UK, are being denied access to their FSM because of their disability. The latest government figures for free school meals show 23% of pupils are eligible in England (this was before the universal roll out to all primary pupils in London). From these figures we have calculated there are almost 2,000 pupils who will now be able to get their free school meal entitlement. The number of disabled pupils/children with special educational needs (SEN) ranges from 11% - 17.3% depending on which definition/data source is used. The Commons Library Research Briefing published on 23 August 2023 quoted 11%, whilst the Department for Education data shows the number of pupils with special educational needs (SEN) increased to 1.57 million pupils in 2023, representing 17.3% of all pupils.  This calculation is based on the lower end of this scale at 13%. Therefore, at least 493,560 disabled children are currently eligible for free school meals. Contact surveyed 1,500 families with disabled children eligible for free school meals in March 2023 and found that a third of eligible disabled children are missing out on their free school meal. 

Dear backers, 

We have received a response from the Secretary of State’s lawyers regarding our pre-action letter.

They have requested a very lengthy extension of 28 days, in which to respond fully to our lawyer’s letter. 

We have discussed this matter with our lawyers and their advice is to agree to the extension. Apparently, it is surprising and unusual for them to need such a long extension, but we do want them to respond properly. So, we have agreed to the extension on the basis that no further extensions will be agreed.

Thank you for your ongoing support.

I will update you again soon… 

Kind regards, 

Natalie Hay

Free School Meal Inclusion campaign