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Salmond's free school meals plan scrapes through

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Published Date: 20 November 2008
By David Maddox
A HOLYROOD committee yesterday voted by a narrow margin to support a flagship SNP policy of providing free school meals for all five- to seven-year-olds.
But doubt remains over whether councils will have the cash to provide the meals or be able to opt out of the measure.

The committee voted in favour of the statutory instrument which will permit councils to provide free meals. Three SNP members vo
ted for the proposal, while Tory Liz Smith and Lib Dem Margaret Smith voted against and three Labour MSPs abstained.

However, the decision will need to be ratified by the full parliament.

Adam Ingram, the children's minister, told the committee the move was needed to transform the attitude of Scots youngsters to food.

"A universal approach is required because obesity is a growing problem," he said. "Targeting a minority of pupils will not bring about the culture change in eating habits that we're looking for – the policy needs to be inclusive."

It will cost £30 million when it is introduced in 2010, but there has been a dispute between the Scottish Government and some councils over whether the money has been put aside to fund it.

Some councils have claimed their concordat with the Scottish Government means they can opt out because the money is not ring-fenced.

The order passed by the committee gives councils the choice of providing lunches free of charge – but does not compel them by law.





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  • Last Updated: 19 November 2008 9:22 PM
  • Source: The Scotsman
  • Location: Edinburgh
 
1

Conan the Librarian™,

20/11/2008 00:25:39
Perhaps we should give the bairns honesty boxes in the dinner halls...
2

S'me,

Edinburgh 20/11/2008 00:45:04
Everything is... FREEEEEEEE!!!!!
3

Millerman1,

Ex SNP Voter (Only Once) 20/11/2008 01:30:26
Yet again bully boy tactics from the snp, they announce and take credit for free school dinners yet make schools provide them with no extra money making schools divert scare funds to pay for this and if they do not provide the free meals then the snp threaten them with legal action.

The snp only ever gained through the protest vote and i myself was a protest vote, never again, it seems that they are not even good for the protest vote nowadays.lol.

The sooner Scotland gets rid of the snp the better.

I heard that a certain anti snp activist is planning posting details of all snp card holders on the web, i hear all 21 snp members are in hiding.lol.
4

Millerman1,

20/11/2008 01:32:24
1#

Perhaps we should give the snp honesty boxes.lol.

2#

Only under the Union.
5

SkeptikScot,

20/11/2008 01:46:55
I'll believe it when I see it. Sorry, sceptical nature.
6

Conan the Librarian™,

20/11/2008 02:04:00
Millerman1? You have changed your tipple then Pete?

7

Another Saturday Night,

20/11/2008 02:43:53
Passed (scraped through), but no cash to pay for it.

Well done Salmond.

What colour is this feather.

8

Scunnert,

20/11/2008 02:50:12
"Three SNP members voted for the proposal, while Tory Liz Smith and Lib Dem Margaret Smith voted against and three Labour MSPs abstained."

Labour abstained. Brave socialists all.

The libdems have joined the tories as an irrelevance.
9

Dougie Douglas,

Brisbane 20/11/2008 03:18:40
Scunnert you beat me to it.

The labour MSP's refused to support an initiave to help the youngest people in society.

Shameless and shallow party politics from labour, again.
10

Angleland Isover,

20/11/2008 06:45:17
Either you think its right or you think feeding children is a waste of money but to abstain is neglect.
11

Tynietiger,

20/11/2008 08:40:08
More good news from the SNP Scottish Government.

As with their oppostion to Local Income Tax, Labour have again failed the lower paid in society.

Also yesterday a huge extension to Central Heating system for pensioners was announced which Labour said in Glenrothes was being cut.
12

thinking,

Scotland 20/11/2008 09:10:39
Surely it is up to the parents to feed their children.
If they are on low incomes (or unemployed) they receive benefits (from the taxpayer) to help them.
Nothing is free so these 'free' meals will be paid for by the taxpayer so, in effect, the taxpayer will be paying twice.
13

Rev. S. Campbell,

Bath 20/11/2008 09:28:55
The persistence of lies around this story is amazing. BY COSLA'S OWN ADMISSION the money to pay for the programme has already been provided. Anyone claiming otherwise is therefore an opportunistic liar trying to make political headway by depriving poor children of decent meals.
14

Alan B,

20/11/2008 09:41:10
The money was put in place for this with the agreement between the government and local authorities not long ago as part of the deal to freeze council tax so it is untrue not the say the finance is not in place.
15

carrottop,

Dumfries 20/11/2008 09:51:31

Stupid idea, one of a few which cost the SNP the recent by-election. Nany state takes the responsibility from the parents who are already sitting back on their fat buts and ruling us from their sofas. If there is a case for making sure kids of primary 1-3 are well nourished then this money should be deducted from child benefit, responsible parents wouldn't mind and the others wouldn't be able to up the buckfast intake between laughing at the rest of us.

This stinks of political gesturing.
16

Rasco,

20/11/2008 10:01:43
#8,9 Agree with you both we have on here people slagging off Alex and SNP its the 3 Labour members who had the chance to scupper this but they don't have the guts lets hear why they abstained and what has Murphy and Gray to say if they think its a bad thing they should come out and say,as an ex-teacher what has the new Lab/MP Mr Roy's take on free meals.
17

G,

Bridgefoot 20/11/2008 10:15:35
"But doubt remains over whether councils will have the cash to provide the meals or be able to opt out of the measure"

Gesture politics by the SNP =- free school lunches is a good idea (a labour idea ressurected by the SNP of course) BUT not funding it properly is typical of the SNP - all mouth and no delivery....free school meals ain't free if they mean less teachers, no lollypop man or less books in the classroom....
18

noswod,

Honestas 20/11/2008 10:48:12
With the comming depression a meal at school may be the only meal many children may get. In many cases it will be the only well balanced meal a child may get. I think on balance it may do more good than bad. But where is the money going to come from for it ? the local income tax? More social and fiscal policy made up by the SNP in the same vein as the strategy of HBOS and RBS overambitions and without funding. Effective social polices can only be delivered when there is the tax base to fund them. Unfortunately in Scotlands case it depends upon the largess of the Southern Britons to keep the show on the road one day they will work this out and we will be seriously skint.
19

57vintage,

Keith 20/11/2008 10:56:53
I think this is a good idea in principle (it was in the SSP manifesto a long time ago) but my primary school teacher friend urges caution in that she thinks that today's kids will not find attractive the fare on offer and that there will be massive waste.

The meals need to be attractive at the same time as nutritious and there needs to be proper funding put in place to ensure that these key principles are followed. Arguments between central and local government about the small print of the Concordat will be of no help at all.

Shame on the Labour members who abstained.
20

Skip McClendon,

20/11/2008 11:01:22
What a wheeze.

Announce free school meals for all, but allocate no extra money to pay for it, and don't make it legally binding on authorities to deliver it.

So, if it's delivered the Government takes the credit, and if it isn't then those nasty local authorities take the blame.

There's no such thing as a free lunch under the "historic" Concordat, as many Councils are now discovering.
21

Miss H,

20/11/2008 11:09:56
10 This was part of the concordat that every council signed up to. That is acknowledged by all of them. They are not saying that there was no funding for it.
The difficulty is that inflationary pressures have reduced the amount of money available to councils to spend.

We are now being told by G Brown that inflation is heading rapidly in the opposite direction, indeed that deflation could be the problem. If he is right, and given that the policy is not due to be implemented till 2010, it gives local authorities a long enough lead in time to put the provision in place. If he is wrong it is more than just free school meals for P1-P3 that councils will be struggling to deliver.

Incidentally the reason it is for P1-P7 is because it is primarily a health promoting measure, operating on the same principle as Macdonalds Happy Meals, only with the aim of educating children's palates to appreciate healthy and nutritious food rather than garbage. Free school meals for all pupils at this time would be unaffordable.
22

Ghengis McCann,

Edinburgh 20/11/2008 11:16:19
#16 - "This stinks of political gesturing"

Everything King Smug and his Gnatolytes have ever done smacks of political gesturing. That is what they do - smoke and mirrors.

Free school meals for all 5-7s (a) will, like other SNP giveaways, have to be paid for by Councils rather than the SG; and (b) are in any case another SNP subsidy for the middle class which will have to be paid for by lower earners.

Far better to target free school meals at parents who genuinely cannot afford to pay (as at present) than that we should all have to fund free scoff for the wee Torquils and Hermiones in Barnton and Kelvinside from our Council tax.

#23 - "This was part of the concordat that every council signed up to. That is acknowledged by all of them"

This is, I know, the standard SNP spin but the reality is rather different. Many of the Councils were reluctant to have anything to do with the Concordat and were largely bounced into it. And they certainly were not aware at the time that the Concordat was apparently a blank cheque where Councils would have to pick up the tab for every populist Gnat wheeze.

This Gnat administration is rapidly falling apart. It really is the economy, stupid.
23

Rev. S. Campbell,

Bath 20/11/2008 11:55:58
#24 "Many of the Councils were reluctant to have anything to do with the Concordat"

Then they shouldn't have signed it, the cowards. The school meals scheme is EXPLICITLY detailed in the concordat as one of the things the money is for. You can spin and twist and lie all you won't, but it's right there in black and white.

Either the scheme should go ahead, or Labour should have the guts to vote it down if it's not implementable. Cowards, cowards everywhere.
24

ochone,

Sauchie, Clack's 20/11/2008 12:18:29
It would seem from some of the comments on here that it is not only some unionist local politicans who were and continue to be unaware of what the concordat contained/contains.

But a word or two about our caring Labour party, it's way of handling local council budgets and it's warmth towards children.

Here in Clackmannanshire, the local Labour controlled Council have managed to run the local budget so well that there is only £60,000 left for emergencies, however undismayed, they have come up with a cunning plan which is going to save all of £20,000 per annum.

They are going to get rid of 13 lollypop men and ladies, that is, they will not replace them when they retire.

Although they have been over run with consultants,who cost the earth, although they have been asked to look into getting rid of some of those at the top as other councils are doing, they didn't, this has been passed by the casting vote of the provost, the Labour group were supported by a Tory councillor.

The decision is now proving as popular as an outbreak of a very well known antisocial disease in a nunnery!

Unionists politicians, you just got to love them!
25

,

20/11/2008 12:22:40
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26

Miss H,

20/11/2008 13:03:39
27 It is possible but a lot of parents don’t do it.

There is a fundamental choice here I guess. Does the state just accept that life is a lottery, if someone happens to be born with parents who aren’t very good at the job and bring their kids up to eat a diet calculated to make them obese that is just tough luck? Or does the state take on some of the responsibility not only of educating children to eat healthily but of feeding them healthily?

27

Arfur,

20/11/2008 13:05:38
Do some of you lot not take any notice of anything?

THE FUNDING HAS ALREADY BEEN PROVIDED FOR THIS.

To say anything other than this just shows what idiots some of you really are.

As for the 3 Labour party members - no surprise there. They know its a good idea and dont want to look as if they dont back it but cant quite bring themselves to fot for - either that or the fax from London was delayed.
28

Miss H,

20/11/2008 13:07:17
24 Every council signed up to the concordat.

They could I suppose decide to withdraw.

If that happened the Scottish Government could re-impose ring fencing and decide on council's spending priorioties, as was the case with the Labour/Lib dem administrations which preceded the SNP one.

But I suggest that no council will do that because they quite like managing their own budgets and deciding their own priorities.
29

,

20/11/2008 13:32:13
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30

,

20/11/2008 13:33:35
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31

,

20/11/2008 13:37:17
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32

,

20/11/2008 13:42:14
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33

Skip McClendon,

20/11/2008 14:33:57
#30

The Scottish Government is still determining Local Authority spending priorities, it's just pretending that it isn't.

The removal of ring-fencing makes it impossible to identify how much money has been allocated for what purpose.

Yes, the Councils got a bigger funding pot this year, but the increase in commitments placed on them would seem to be far greater than the overall increase in funding.

From that increase, they have been expected to freeze Council tax, cut class sizes, provide free school meals etc, etc.

It's like the magic bullet that was supposed to have hit Kennedy 4 times. The magic funding increase is supposed to pay for several things at once.
34

Miss H,

20/11/2008 15:11:55
31 & 33 You already pay taxes to give your doctor friends’ children free nursery education, free school education and free university education. Why draw the line at giving their children one free school meal a day between the ages of 5-7 as part of the drive to reduce obesity? Obesity also costs the NHS a lot of money, so you already pay taxes to treat the consequences of bad eating habits which are usually learned in childhood. You might actually end up seeing less of your tax going towards that if those bad habits can be corrected with early intervention.

As regards point 33 - Yes so do I. In Glasgow for example the council top sliced 20% off community planning partnership budgets to be re-allocated to new projects. Following community consultation a lot of areas opted to spend the money on buying extra police officers. Quite a few projects have lost funding and gone under as a consequence. But communities are getting extra police on the streets, on top of what was already being delivered centrally. So I understand why projects which have lost their funding are annoyed about it but I also believe that local communities should be able to set their own priorities and if more police is what they want, more police is what they should get.
35

Miss H,

20/11/2008 15:19:42
35 That really is nonsense you know. You acknowledge that councils got a bigger share of funding under this government and they were of course fully compensated for freezing the council tax.

What is putting pressure on council budgets is not new commitments - it's inflation. Council budgets have been hammered by increases in fuel and energy costs in exactly the same way that individual household budgets have been.

That's what is causing difficulties not the funding settlement itself.

36

Skip McClendon,

20/11/2008 15:24:42
#37

Every round of Local Authority funding his provided "record" levels of funding in cash terms, precisely because of inflation.

In real terms, everyone at the frontline of local services knows that budgets have been cut this time around.

The Council tax freeze may have been a good political trick for the SNP (and it was, after all who WANTS to pay higher taxes) but it has been bad for local services, and removed any flexibility that local authorities had to secure additional funding to meet differing local needs.
37

,

20/11/2008 15:58:18
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38

Andrew,

20/11/2008 16:03:36
"Scrapes" rather than scraps!!
39

Skip McClendon,

20/11/2008 16:23:20
#40

Oh grow up.

No-one on here is saying that children shouldn't be provided with healthy food, free if possible.

We just realise that it has to be paid for, in real actual money not with magic "Concordat" dollars which apparently are able to be used again...and again....and again.
40

Miss H,

20/11/2008 16:41:50
38 You might have a point if the SNP had simply increased the amount of money given to local authorities. After all they could have put it up by 1p and claimed it was an increase. But they increased not only the amount but the share of the overall Scottish budget allocated to local government so your point is not really valid. What is more they took action to address one of the biggest bones of contention - free personal care - by having the policy independently reviewed and agreeing to be bound by the findings. And of course increased FPC payments in line with inflation.

Furthermore your point about services being 'cut' would be disputed by many councils. Services may be being provided in a different way or by different providers, that does not in fact mean that they have been cut.

There is - as everyone acknowledges - enormous pressure on local authority budgets just as there is pressure on health board budgets and on the Scottish Government budget too. And without fiscal powers the Scottish Government does not have the flexibility to respond to economic uncertainty and inflationary pressures. So everyone is in the same boat really aren't they?
41

Miss H,

20/11/2008 16:43:00
39 The Scottish Government has no powers to levy taxation (except to vary income tax by 3p) so while I think that's quite a good idea it couldn't be done.
42

,

20/11/2008 16:50:29
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,

20/11/2008 18:21:39
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44

the.ally ,

max. 20/11/2008 19:05:55
'the union works for the little people'

No it doesn't!

It's because of the union Scotland's 'little poeple', the poor and the masses, actually don't work!

This is more of the New Labour 'heap the shoite on them and keep them dumb' propoganda.

The fact is, the sooner Scotland gets independence then we'll have enough money to feed all our children free!

And, why is westminster so keen on politicians and executives feeding at the public (little people/masses) taxpayers trough? Hornby gets millions, westminster politicians ripping ra p!ss claiming exhorbitant expenses, it's riduculous lies and political mushroom theory; keep the little masses in a political cupboard, continually heap the political propoganda shoite on them, and they'll keep laying the golden eggs for the so called elites.

You bastarbs will be held to account when Scotland gets independence.
allymax.
45

,

20/11/2008 19:08:46
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46

the.ally ,

max. 20/11/2008 19:09:05
And, as far as the councils are concerned, they voted for it, they will just have to cut out all their expensive new office furniture, cut out the extra spending on 'advisory trips abroad', and cut out pay rises. I mean, the council are supossed to work for the people; NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND.
47

Jock Tamson,

Scotland, Caledonia, Alba 20/11/2008 19:12:48
Ochone, Sauchie@26. Are you like me in never having figured out why the lollipop people are stationed at existing pedestrian crossings.

Why pay for a belt and braces?
48

the.ally ,

max. 20/11/2008 19:13:16
'Hysterical'?

Isn't that an affliction only susceptible to females?

'children are too young to vote'; what's the point in voting anyway; New Labourt are 'locking-in' society so that democracy is eradicated.
You fool, can't you see the Germans coming?

The Germans are coming, the germans are coming; don't mention the war.
49

Jock Tamson,

Scotland, Caledonia, Alba 20/11/2008 19:27:11
51, the.ally , was reden sie an? Welche Krieg?
50

,

20/11/2008 19:33:09
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51

the.ally ,

max. 20/11/2008 19:35:16
Jock, is this what you refer to?

Georg Heym:
'The War'
Now he has arisen: he, who slept so long,
from the depth arisen, out of arches strong.
Huge he stands and unknown in the twilight land,
and the moon he crushes in his blackened hand.


Broad on city's evening, broad and angrily
shadow falls, and frost of strange obscurity
makes the market's bustle stop in icy scare.
Silence reigns. They turn - and no one is aware.


In the street it comes to touch her shoulders light:
Just a question. Answerless. A face goes white.
From afar sound whining abbey bells so thin
and the beards are quaking round the pointed chin.


High up, on the mountains, he begins to dance,
and he cries: You fighters, rise up and advance!
Echoes sound: around his shaking, blackened head
swings a chain of skulls he wrenched from thousand dead.


Tower-like he squashes embers' dying gleam
and, where day is fleeing, fills with blood the stream.
Countless are the corpses swept into the reeds,
covered by white feathers, where the vulture feeds.


He stands over ramparts blue of flames around,
over darkened streets with heavy weapons sound,
over broken gates where gatemen lie across,
over bridges bending under human dross.


Through the night he chases fire across the world:
red-fanged hound of hell with savage scream unfurled.
Out of darkness leaps dominion of night,
frightful at its border shine volcanoes bright.


And a thousand redcaps, pointed far and wide,
litter up the dark plain, flicker up astride.
Who below in alleys still runs to and fro
he sweeps in the fire, that it hotter grow.


And the flames are leaping, burning tree by tree.
Yellow bats of fire clawing endlessly.
And he thrusts his kiln-staff, dark and charcoal-bound
deep amongst the trees to stoke the flames around.


An important city, chocked in yellow glow,
jumped without a whisper to the depths below,
while he stands, a giant, over
52

Jock Tamson,

Scotland, Caledonia, Alba 20/11/2008 23:06:20
54, the.ally. I shall repeat my response@ 52 in a language known to you.

What are you talking about? Which war?

I could repeat the same for your post at 54.

Try Lophrepramine.
53

the.ally ,

max. 21/11/2008 00:32:29
Jock, I'll repeat my answer in a language YOU can understand; society is at war with it's own elected government that hides the totalitarian ethos behind the mask of democracy.

Try reading. I could repeat the same post for your post at 55.

 

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