Funding guarantees holiday meals for children

Rotherham Council is set to use £1.5m to feed school children during the holidays

Rotherham Council is set to use £1.5m of government funding to feed schoolchildren during the holidays.

Proposals include providing supermarket vouchers to families in receipt of free school meals.

More than 1,000 extra families required free school meals in Rotherham in the last year and the council will provide vouchers for 13,200 children.

The scheme, which will cover the spring, summer and autumn holidays, is set to be decided by the cabinet on 10 June.

The funding has been provided by the government’s household support fund, which provides crisis support to vulnerable households.

Of the £2.4m fund, Rotherham Council will also set aside £500,000 to help with the cost of council tax, £160,000 to help with housing costs and £174,000 towards energy bills.

There will also be £25,000 for household and personal hygiene packages and £45,000 to support care leavers.

'Huge impact'

Councillor David Sheppard, Rotherham Council’s cabinet member for social inclusion and neighbourhood working, said: “For many people in Rotherham, support through this funding has been a lifeline throughout the cost-of-living crisis.

"I am pleased that there are options to continue some of the schemes, such as the free school meal vouchers for school children, which have had and will continue to have a huge impact on residents’ lives.”

The council was previously awarded a full year UK Government Household Support Fund grant of just under £5m.

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