In December 2022 we looked at the patchwork provision of holiday food vouchers being offered to families with children in receipt of Free School Meals (FSM) in England.
The Shared Data Unit found the number of councils no longer offering the vouchers had continued to grow since August - with 21 having scrapped the scheme.
The Food Foundation, a charity that campaigns on food policy, said it was "vitally important" all eligible children received holiday support and said provision around England had become a "postcode lottery".
But the Local Government Association (LGA) said some councils could not afford to continue offering the schemes.
Families with children on FSM have been offered supermarket vouchers during the school holiday since footballer Marcus Rashford's successful campaign during the pandemic.
Initially they were funded directly by the government but in 2021, this was replaced by the Household Support Fund (HSF) - a grant given to councils to spend on helping vulnerable families. While most auhtorities initially provided the voucher schemes out of their grant funding, such schemes are discretional.
The study aimed to find out how financially struggling families with children were being given food support over the Christmas holiday.
We asked all 152 upper-tier local authorities in England whether they would be running a food voucher scheme for the families of children in receipt of free school meals as well as asking them, broadly, how they would be spending their allocation of the HSF.
We managed to gather details from 125 authorities, in part by seeking out information already available on council websites.
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21 (10%) authorities were not offering specific vouchers or cash to families with children for food over the Christmas period. However, nine of those authorities were offering one-off winter support payments specifically targeting families with children. Two authorities, Derbyshire and Calderdale, offered a voucher scheme that would run from January, rather than the Christmas break.
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94 councils offered supermarket vouchers to support families with food over the Christmas holidays.
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10 councils offered cash payments - rather than vouchers - to support families over the Christmas holidays.
We provided partners with this spreadsheet showing how the provision compared at local authority level alongside this briefing pack containing key background, findings and interviews.
There are five tabs on the spreadsheet
- A mastersheet showing all the councils in our study
- A tab showing just the councils offering one-off payments
- One showing councils not offering vouchers or cash
- One showing councils offering cash over Christmas
- One showing councils offering food vouchers over Christmas
The story featured on BBC online as well as bulletins on Radio 4's Today programme, BBC News and 5 Live. The story was used by several partner publications including:
- Berkshire Live: Holiday food vouchers for children have become a 'postcode lottery' says charity 23 December 2022.
- Kent Live: Charity claims Christmas holiday support is 'postcode lottery' as Kent set to offer £20 in vouchers 23 December 2022.
- Liverpool World: Holiday food support for kids has become a “postcode lottery” - two Merseyside councils have scrapped food vouchers this Christmas 23 December 2022.
- Wales Online: Holiday food vouchers for children have become a 'postcode lottery' says charity 23 December 2022.
- Northants Live: Northamptonshire children on free school meals to receive help over Christmas 23 December 2022.
- Gloucestershire Live: Holiday food vouchers for children have become a 'postcode lottery' says charity 23 December 2022.
- Hampshire Live: Hampshire one of the few councils not directly offering school meal vouchers during Christmas holidays 23 December 2022.
- Surrey Live: Holiday food vouchers for children have become a 'postcode lottery' says charity 23 December 2022.
- Cambridge News: How Cambs compares as charity says holiday food support for families a 'postcode lottery' 23 December 2022.
- Leicester Mercury: Charity says Christmas holiday support for kids on free schools meals is a postcode lottery 23 December 2022
- Essex Live: Essex councils confirm whether children will continue to receive free school meals through Christmas 23 December 2022
- Suffolk Live: Holiday food vouchers for children have become a 'postcode lottery' says charity 23 December 2022.