This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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School meals in Scotland 2006
06/06/2006
Statistics published today provide results of the latest annual survey of school meals.
The information was collected in early 2006 from all publicly funded schools in Scotland and, for the second time, the figures include information about local authority expenditure on meals.
The main findings for 2006 are:
School meals (free or purchased)
- Overall in 2004-05, local authorities spent £101 million preparing over 57 million meals, compared to £97 million spent preparing 60 million meals in 2003-04. A further £3.1 million was spent on school milk programmes.
- Of those pupils present on the survey day, 46.1 per cent took a meal supplied by the school, a slight decrease from 46.7 per cent in 2005. The percentage taking meals in primary schools has actually increased slightly, but this was offset by decreases in the secondary and special sectors.
- Percentage of pupils taking meals was generally higher in smaller schools and in schools in more rural areas.
Free school meals
- Eighteen per cent of pupils were known to be entitled to free school meals. This is down from 19 per cent in 2005. Sixteen per cent of all pupils were registered for free school meals.
- Of those entitled, 69 per cent were present and took a free school meal on the survey day, up from 67 per cent in 2005. This increase reverses the trend of recent years. This equates to 13 per cent of all pupils.
- Forty-four per cent of mainstream schools had an anonymised system for free school meals receipt, up from 33 per cent in 2005.
Healthy eating
- All local authority primary school gave free fresh fruit to P1 and P2 pupils, and 91 per cent of all schools had free fresh chilled water available to pupils and staff at all times, down from 94 per cent in 2005. This decrease is likely to be artificial, being explained by revised guidance which reinforced the criteria required for a school being counted as providing water.
- Thirty-three per cent of all schools provided a breakfast club service to pupils. Provision of breakfast clubs was more common in those schools with higher rates of deprivation.