Reporting year 2025

Estimate of additional children claiming Free School Meals following expansion of eligibility

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Introduction

This publication presents the estimate of the number of pupils DfE expects to benefit from expanding the criteria for eligibility to free school meals.  This estimate reflects the changes to increase eligibility from just families where their household income is less than £7,400 per year to all pupils who live in families in receipt of Universal Credit regardless of household income.


Headline facts and figures - 2025

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Estimate of additional number of children claiming a free school meal

Table 1: Estimated number of additional children claiming a free meal
Academic Year

23/24 (actual)

26/27

27/28

28/29

29/30

Claiming a free meal

3,400,000

4,020,000

3,960,000

3,960,000

3,980,000

Difference to 2023/24

-

620,000

560,000

560,000

580,000

Notes:

  1. The above figures have been rounded to the nearest 20,000 children to reflect the level of uncertainty associated with forecasts, so figures will not sum.
  2. Estimates for forecast years are from Department for Work and Pensions Policy Simulation Model (PSM). 
  3. The DWP forecasts are for children aged 4 to 15 only and take no account of the announced changes to eligibility in Early Years or Further Education.
  4. Actual 2023/24 number of children eligible for FSM use definitions from School Census and Universal Infant Free School Meal (UIFSM) publications respectively.  The coverage of both are: state-funded nursery, primary, secondary, alternative provision (AP) schools and special schools, and non-maintained special schools. Does not include independent schools.  Year Group is used as proxy for age.
  5. 3.4 million current eligibility figure comprises:

Methodology

This section describes the methodology used to derive the estimates set out above in the ‘Estimate of additional number of children claiming a free school meal’ section

The underlying calculation uses three main inputs:

  • Estimates from the Department for Work and Pensions Policy Simulation Model (PSM) on the number of children in families receiving Universal Credit in England.  The DWP estimates are produced separately for children aged 4-6 and 7-15. The PSM is a static microsimulation model based on a snapshot of the UK population from the Family Resources Survey (FRS), currently for the financial years ending 2020, 2022 and 2023. It uses caseload forecasts alongside benefit rules to simulate results for each year, currently up to and including 2029/30. The latest version of the PSM consistent with Spring Statement 2025 forecasts has been used for these estimates.
  • The number of children in receipt of Universal Infant Free School Meals (UIFSM) in Reception to Year 2 excluding those eligible for FSM.  These UIFSM figures represent an estimate of the number of infants who will take-up a free school meal. They are based on an estimate of UIFSM pupils who will claim free school meals, which – to avoid double-counting - is adjusted to reflect that some children will become eligible to receive a free meal via the increased FSM offer instead.
  • The assumed Free School Meal take-up rate of 89%, i.e. 11% of pupils who are eligible for FSM do not take-up the option of a free meal
    Source: Written questions and answers - Written questions, answers and statements - UK Parliament (opens in a new tab)

The methodology simply:

  • Aggregates the DWP PSM estimates for 4-6- and 7–15-year-olds (Table 2)
  • Adjusts that total to reflect not all children who are eligible for FSM take-up the meal, i.e. only 89% take-up (Table 3)
  • Adds on the estimated number of children who receive UIFSM (Table 4)
  • Compares the estimates to the 2023/24 baseline where 3.4 million children claimed a free meal  (Table 5)
Table 2: Estimated number of children in households receiving Universal Credit in England by year as forecast by DWP
Academic Year

23/24 (actual)

26/27

27/28

28/29

29/30

Number of children 
aged 4-6 

-

720,000

700,000

700,000

700,000

Number of children 
aged 7-15

-

2,680,000

2,660,000

2,680,000

2,700,000

Total aged 4-15

-

3,400,000

3,380,000

3,380,000

3,400,000

Table 3: Estimated number of children aged 4-15 taking-up Free School Meal
Academic Year

23/24 (actual)

26/27

27/28

28/29

29/30

Number of children 
aged 4-15

-

3,040,000

3,000,000

3,020,000

3,040,000

Table 4: Children estimated to be receiving Universal Infant Free School Meals (UIFSM), discounting those eligible for FSM
Academic Year

23/24 (actual)

26/27

27/28

28/29

29/30

UIFSM numbers

-

980,000

960,000

960,000

940,000

Table 5: Estimated number of additional 4-15 year old children claiming a free meal compared to 2023/24 baseline
Academic Year

23/24 (actual)

26/27

27/28

28/29

29/30

Claiming a free meal

3,400,000

4,020,000

3,960,000

3,960,000

3,980,000

Difference to 2023/24

-

620,000

560,000

560,000

580,000

Notes:

  1. In all the above tables, the estimates have been rounded to the nearest 20,000 so the figures will not  sum.

 

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