... in Southwark:
Council chiefs implementing the largest budget cuts in London are to spend almost £8million on free school meals for every primary pupil to stop poorer children feeling "stigmatised". Labour-led Southwark council claims the scheme - which will also include middle-class children - will reduce obesity by giving pupils one healthy meal a day. (1)
But today the authority was accused of "strange and illogical" behaviour as it revealed it is also slashing £34 million from its budget as part of coalition cuts. (2) Ten day care centres for the elderly are under threat and £5.7 million has already been cut from social care and safeguarding children services. (3)
Tory Stephen Hammond called on the council to "see sense". He said: "This will cost them more money and would not appear to be good value-for-money." (4)
London Assembly health chairman James Cleverly [sic] said: "There are easier ways to prevent the stigmatisation of free school meals than this... (5) Universal benefits are inherently wasteful."(6)
1) Their motivation may be unsound, but it is better to do the right thing for the wrong reasons than to do the wrong thing.
2) Those are 'coalition cuts' not council cuts (for sure, council quangocrats are protecting themselves and sacrificing 'front line services', see post of earlier today, separate topic).
3) Again, there is worthwhile spending and wasted spending. Don't make the best the enemy of the good.
4) It's fantastic value-for-money. Those "middle class parents" will end up paying for those lunches anyway, whether out of their taxes or out of their net incomes - and then there are more economies of scale if every child gets it and a huge reduction in bureaucracy in administering who's entitled and who isn't. Plus it makes life easier for parents whose children bicker about getting a packed lunch - the long suffering parent can tell them they are getting a school dinner because it's "free" and that's the end of that.
5) He 'cleverly' avoids explaining exactly how he would achieve this. So he's lying, basically.
6) Twat. Universal benefits - either everybody gets it or nobody does - are the best benefits and inherently cheap. I am (for example) in favour of universal education vouchers, as are proper Tories (i.e. UKIP), and being in favour of one but not the other is incoherent to the point of stupidity. That's not to mention the fact that means-testing is a particularly spiteful for of taxation and leads to incredibly high marginal tax rates etc.
Added bonus: we won't get these dreary statistics saying what percentage of children eligible for free school lunches attend which school, get into higher education etc.
What's not to like?
Demands
1 hour ago
14 comments:
The only problem is that school dinners are frequently utterly foul and so many children will want to take a packed lunch anyway.
C, a) no they're not, they are quire nice by all accounts (better than we were kids) and b) if kids want to spend their own pocket money and make their own packed lunches, they are welcome to do so.
Re Quality of School Dinners. Our accountant's Mum (long dead) was head mistress at a primary school in rural Suffolk in the 50's, 60's and early 70's. her school's dinners were legendary. the school grew a lot of stuff itself and husbanded a pig (I seem to recall) and received all sorts of foodstuffs from the surrounding largely agricultural parent group. All the HMI's used to congregate there at lunchtime.
Eat your heart out jamie bloody oliver.
Mind you my london grammar school food at roughly the same period were shite.
"The only problem is that school dinners are frequently utterly foul and so many children will want to take a packed lunch anyway."
--
One would think so. However, as good example, Chicago, Illinois, USA came up with the "solution" of simply banning children from bringing school lunches onto premises and forcing everyone to eat only the school provided food. This method is good at favouring profitability of the school lunch provider and in the case of government paying for everyone, then insured revenue for the food service contractor.
You underestimate the extent to which many children (for example those with Asperger's syndrome) are genuinely unable to eat many foods and therefore will not find much of what is offered up as standardised school dinners suitable.
"That's not to mention the fact that means-testing is a particularly spiteful for of taxation and leads to incredibly high marginal tax rates etc."
I shall offer you this anecdotal evidence in support of universality.
I used to get the NHS tax credits exemption certificate each year as our joint income was JUST below the threshold where WTC is fully withdrawn and you only get CTC. My teeth are really bad because I didn't look after them as a teen. I had some work done on them when it was free but since then (and unfortunately after the exemption was withdrawn) some of my other teeth that weren't sorted previously have chipped away and one tooth which was filled fell apart around the filling which then fell out.
My payrise means that I can no longer afford dental treatment....! Apparently, that's FAIR!!
I just re-read the blog post.
This is LABOUR introducing universality and a TORY complaining?
Today Chicago tomorrow Southwark, the day after UK-wide.
L, coincidentally I asked assembled family members a couple of weeks ago what they thought of their school dinners, and it was broadly agreed that they were quite OK.
Anon 19.55, who said 'ban' or 'force'? I said 'offer'. What about ringing the police, the fire brigade, using a public library, voting at elections? Nobody's forced to avail him- or herself of any of these 'free at point of use' universal benefits.
C, the Asperger's kids, the vegan kids, the Muslim kids etc can bring packed lunches, see if I care. Like I said, this is an economics thing - better do something cheap and cheerful with which 90% of kids are happy than spend twice as much trying to keep 99% happy (diminishing marginal returns).
SW, that's the sort of thing I meant. A few hundred quid per child per year for school dinners, free NHS dentist, free prescriptions, added to all the other stuff you lose at various income levels all stack up.
And yes, I remember the Labour outcry when the Tories said let's hand out nursery vouchers to go towards the cost of, er, nurseries.
Problem is, they worked so well that Labour had no choice but to continue, it's just that they renamed them 'SureStart' or some such. Every parent I know referred to them as 'nursery vouchers'.
Buggered if I care. I always went home for my lunch.
You lucky bastard, I was at boarding school. The food there really was bad, made school meals at my primary school look like gourmet dishes.
Added bonus: we won't get these dreary statistics saying what percentage of children eligible for free school lunches attend which school, get into higher education etc.
Second time today I've read something about not collecting stats so politicians can't (ab)use them.
Sounds like a good strategy to me.
"You lucky bastard, I was at boarding school." Luck had little to do with it - when my father offered me the chance to go to boarding school I turned it down.
My generation has produced a somewhat sparse contribution to the future of the FatBigot clan so feedback about school meals is not large. Nonetheless, the universal view is that they are nothing like as good as when we was nippers.
Rather like the children, in my view.
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