How are the new standards for school food being funded?
The Department for Children, Schools and Families (formerly the Department for Education and Skills) initially allocated £220m to support the improvement of school food between 2005 and 2008. These funds were given to local authorities and individual schools. In September 2006, a new multi-million pound package of measures was announced. The School Lunch Grant includes £240 million of funding over three years (April 2008 to March 2011) to focus on increasing school lunch take-up, specifically by helping to keep down the price of a school lunch. £2 million of this package was used to establish a network of training kitchens and a specific fund for building kitchens. The School Lunch Grant can only be spent in four ways: 1. To pay for ingredients for schools lunches; 2. To pay labour costs of catering staff; 3. To buy small pieces of kitchen equipment, for example, microwaves, ovens, combi-ovens, mixers etc; 4. To pay for the nutrient analysis software required to assess whether a menu m
