Council needs to do more to help families in need
The Council’s Crisis and Resilience Fund (CRF) has still not been finalised. This is despite receiving £2.5 million from Central Government from April 2026.
The Council’s website says that they are ‘currently gathering information to help decide what the scheme will look like’.
Councillor Dean Crofts (Kingsbrook) pointed out to the Mayor’s Executive Committee that the Council’s Summer Free School Meal Voucher scheme, which used to be paid for by the CRF’s predecessor fund, helped 6609 eligible children in 2021. Now, these children and young people on free school meals must apply for help through a scheme which hasn’t yet been finalised.
Councillor Crofts commented, “Other councils have already made decisions on this. Liberal Democrat - run Bath and Northeast Somerset have made it clear in their Crisis Resilience Fund decision – which they made in May - that they are going to carry on providing vouchers for all 4100 children in their area who are on Free School Meals.
They are using the Crisis and Resilience Fund to do this and have itemised how much this will cost. They have written to every family, put information on their website and done press releases about how this will change after the summer.
Where is our help for our families? We know who the families are. Schools can tell us who is on Free School Meals. We should be getting help out to them, given the cost-of-living pressures, not waiting for them to apply for a scheme that doesn’t yet exist.”