(b)—The Assumption of Responsibility by the County Council.
No further serious attempt was made for some years to place the provision of food upon the rates. On the passing of the Provision of Meals Act the County Council took over the whole responsibility for the provision, the Joint Committee on Underfed Children, which had been composed partly of representatives of voluntary organisations,[[391]] giving place to a Sub-Committee of the Education Committee[[392]]; but voluntary funds were still relied on. In 1908, however, the supply began to fail. In July of that year a conference of the Mayors of the London boroughs had declared that there was no reason to fear that voluntary contributions would be insufficient to defray the cost of food.[[393]] The appeal subsequently issued met, however, with a very meagre response, only some £6,000 being subscribed.[[394]] By the end of the year it became clear that recourse must be had to the rates, and application was accordingly made to the Board of Education. The new system was put in force early in 1909.[[395]]
Meanwhile the constant complaints of the varying methods pursued by the different Care Committees[[396]] in the selection of the children, and the rapid increase in the number of children fed,[[397]] led the Sub-Committee on Underfed Children to call for a report on the circumstances of these children, so that the cause of the distress might be ascertained and some light thrown on the question how far the provision of free meals was really an effective remedy for the evils which existed.[[398]] An investigation was accordingly conducted by the two officials who had been appointed by the Council to organise the work of the local Care Committees. Twelve schools were selected in different districts, and a careful enquiry made into the circumstances of all the children at these schools who were receiving free meals. In all 1,218 families were dealt with, containing 3,334 children.
In a small number of the cases, 3·9 per cent., the distress was found to be due to illness or some other temporary misfortune; unemployment of the wage-earner accounted for 5·7 per cent., and under-employment for 19 per cent., of the cases; in 44·7 per cent. the cause of the distress was attributed to the intemperance or wastefulness of the parents.[[399]] The necessity of providing school meals, at any rate as a temporary expedient, was clearly proved. It was found that, though 21·12 per cent. of the children were not necessitous, the remaining 78·88 per cent. were necessitous "in the sense of lacking sufficient food," and that they would require school meals "until effective Care Committees are able to check the diseases attendant on partial employment, bad housing and other evils."[[400]] So far little attempt had been made to improve the conditions of the homes by systematic visiting. With the majority of the Care Committees, declared the organisers, "their only active members are the head teachers and their only visitors are the attendance officers."[[401]] The complaints as to want of uniformity in the selection of the children were corroborated. In many schools "each department has its own system of enquiry, its own method of selection, its own standard of necessity, and the result is that it is seldom that all the school children of one family are on the necessitous list."[[402]] The extent of overlapping between the Education Authority and the Boards of Guardians was shown by the fact that out of the 1,218 families 39 were in receipt of out-relief while no fewer than 165 had been in receipt of relief recently.[[403]]
To put an end to all this want of uniformity it was recommended that a responsible secretary visitor should be appointed for each school or group of schools, who would organise bands of voluntary workers, and co-operate with all existing local agencies for social improvement. It was urged that the duties of the Care Committees should not be confined to the provision of meals, but should include everything pertaining to the health and general well-being of the child.[[404]] This latter recommendation was carried out. The Care Committees were re-organised and given additional duties, the supervision of medical treatment and the work of after-care,[[405]] and it was resolved that a committee should be appointed for every elementary school, not only for those which contained "necessitous" children.[[406]] The suggestion that a paid secretary should be appointed for every school or group of schools was not adopted. The Council decided merely to appoint twelve paid lady workers for the whole of London, whose duties would be to strengthen the Care Committees. At the same time, as a further step towards uniformity, local associations of Care Committees were formed. Several such associations had already come into existence voluntarily, but they were now made uniform and permanent. The functions of these associations, which numbered 27, were to make all the arrangements in connection with the feeding centres, and to collect voluntary contributions. They were also to act as advisory bodies. At their meetings would be discussed such questions as the selection of children to be fed, after-care, medical treatment, and any other duties falling to the Care Committees to be performed. They would thus, it was hoped, initiate a common policy and serve as a means of co-ordinating the work of the various Care Committees. Two-thirds of their members were to be representatives of Care Committees, one-sixth were to be nominated by the Teachers' Local Consultative Committees, and one-sixth appointed by the Children's Care (Central) Sub-Committee.[[407]]
There are thus to-day three distinct, though interdependent, organisations—the Children's Care (Central) Sub-Committee, the Local Associations of Care Committees and the local Care Committees appointed for each school.
In considering the development in London of the movement for the provision of meals, one is struck by the haphazard way in which the vast organisation has been built up. The County Council has from the first been reluctant to undertake the responsibility for its underfed children. "The whole question of deciding which children are underfed, and of making special provision for such children," declared the Chairman of the Sub-Committee on Underfed Children in 1908, "should really be one for the Poor Law Authority to decide, and not the Education Authority."[[408]] The attempt to make the Guardians carry out their duty having signally failed, the London County Council was forced to undertake the task, but it has done so in a half-hearted fashion. The results of this failure to grasp the problem in a statesmanlike manner are conspicuously evident in the conditions prevailing to-day.