Friday May 23rd 2025
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Paul Kelly
Food vouchers may be a better option to ensure Borders children on free school meals benefit from nutritious grub outside of term time, a meeting has heard.
At full council on Thursday, May 22, Councillor Viv Thomson, SNP for Tweeddale West, asked what support is provided by SBC to families of children in receipt of free school meals to ensure they continue to receive free nutritious lunches over the holiday period.
Councillor Jenny Linehan, deputising for Councillor Julie Pirone, SBC’s executive member for Education, Youth Development and Lifelong Learning, said: “Eligible families registered for free school meals will receive £3 per child per day for the meals during holidays.
“The benefit will be paid directly into the families bank accounts. Note that this is separate from the universal free meals offer during term time.”
Councillor Thomson said: “Many families who are entitled to receive a benefit they could, potentially, be in arrears and the money when it goes into the bank account, they don’t get the benefit of it.
“So maybe we could give some thought to how else we might do that. I’m aware from the work that I did at Citizens Advice that a lot of people were given vouchers from Tescos to go and buy the food.”
Councillor Linehan said the idea of vouchers was a “really good one” and said she would pass it on.
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