Free School Meals
How to increase registrations for FSM
The context
The FSM award is more than just a healthy meal. When a child registers, their school also receives additional Pupil Premium funding. These funds help with things like uniform grants and access to Holiday Activity Food programmes.
But many children are missing out on FSM.
Historically, families have had to manually apply to receive FSMs. The pupil’s school or the council then needs to verify their application, before it is checked by the Department for Education.
This process and various other factors (including the stigma associated with accessing the FSM benefit, or simply not being aware of the programme and/or how to register), means that many families don’t apply.
Even for London Boroughs, who have had access to a universal free school meals programme since 2023, the challenge remains that for schools to access Pupil Premium funding, entitled families still need to apply. This often doesn't happen.
The solution: opt-out auto-enrolment
We’ve been helping to address this challenge by supporting councils to implement an opt-out auto-enrolment process.
Opt-out auto-enrolment simplifies the FSM registration process so councils can use existing data to identify and register entitled pupils. Families can still opt out if they choose, but they no longer have to manually apply to receive the benefit.
The same idea has worked in the UK before, in the Workplace Pension Scheme, where an opt-out model significantly improved pension uptake.
Are you ready to take action?
To maintain our delivery standards, we have capacity to support 3 more local authorities ahead of the FSM policy changes in September 2026.
