The Feeding of School Children

by M. E. Bulkley

(f)—The Provision for Paying Children and Recovery of the Cost.

When the Provision of Meals Act was passed it was assumed that a considerable proportion of the cost of the meals would be borne by the parents. It was confidently expected that large numbers of parents would be willing to avail themselves of the provision of a midday meal at school for their children and would gladly pay for it.[^[306]] The circular issued by the Board of Education to the Local Authorities pointed out that the Act aimed at securing that suitable meals should be available "just as much for those whose parents are in a position to pay as for those to whom food must be given free of cost."[^[307]] "There will generally be no difficulty in providing, where it is so desired, a school dinner at a fixed price in the middle of the day, attended by children for whom, by reason of distance from the school or because the mother's absence makes a home meal difficult, the parent prefers to take advantage of an arrangement similar to that now in operation in most secondary day schools."[^[308]] Moreover, little difficulty was anticipated in extracting payment from those parents who could afford to pay but neglected to do so. These expectations have not been fulfilled. In the year 1908-9 the sums received from the parents, either contributed voluntarily by them or recovered after prosecution or threat of prosecution, amounted to only £295, or .44 per cent. of the total receipts.[^[309]] In 1911-12 the amount so received had increased but was still only 1 per cent.[^[310]]

The smallness of the sums voluntarily contributed by the parents is largely due to the action of the Local Authorities. In the great majority of towns in England[^[311]] no serious attempt has been made to establish "school restaurants"; the Local Education Authority, owing perhaps to lack of accommodation, perhaps to the difficulty of providing for a fluctuating number of children (a difficulty felt especially where the meals are supplied through a caterer), perhaps to the feeling that the provision of school meals as a matter of convenience would encourage the mothers to go out to work, has limited the provision to necessitous children. In 1911-12, out of 118 towns (apart from London) in which provision was made for underfed children, in only twenty-two were any of the meals paid for wholly by the parents. The number of children so paid for was in most cases negligible, the total amounting to only a few hundreds. And these figures include meals paid for under compulsion (though without prosecution) as well as meals voluntarily paid for as a matter of convenience.[^[312]]

But even where the system of voluntary payment has been tried, it has been a failure. At Bradford, where a large proportion of married women work in the mills, it was felt that many parents would take advantage of a system by which they could obtain a midday meal for their children at cost price.[^[313]] The Education Committee accordingly sent round a circular to the head teachers asking them to announce to their scholars that a good dinner could be obtained for 2d.[^[314]] The response was disappointing. Comparatively few of the mothers took advantage of the offer, and the result, though the number of paying children[^[315]] seems to be larger than in any other provincial town,[^[316]] can only be described as a failure. This may be partly attributed to the cost. Where there are several children a payment of 2d. per head may be more than the parent can afford. But the main cause of failure is undoubtedly the dislike of the independent type of parent who can afford to pay to sending his children to meals the majority of which are being given free. In fact any system which seeks to combine free and paying meals, the free meals being the chief element, is fore-doomed to failure.[^[317]]

In the Special Schools for mentally or physically defective children, where the dinner is provided more as a part of the school curriculum than as a "charity" meal, there is not, as we shall see, much difficulty in inducing the parents to pay for the meals.[^[318]] In rural districts also, where the children are in many cases unable to go home at midday, the system of paying dinners has more chance of success.[^[319]]

Turning now to the question of the recovery of the cost from unwilling parents, the Provision of Meals Act, it will be remembered, laid down that the Local Authorities should require payment unless satisfied that the parents could not pay, and the cost might be recovered summarily as a civil debt. In practice this has been found very difficult to accomplish. It is impossible to tell from the returns how much of the £1,570 received from parents in 1911-12 was contributed voluntarily, and how much recovered after compulsion, but the amount recovered must necessarily be very small.[^[320]]

Where the Local Education Authority confines the provision of meals strictly to the cases where the family income is below a certain amount per head, as at Leeds, there is of course little to be recovered, attempts at recovery being limited to cases where the parents have made an incorrect statement as to their income, and have therefore been obtaining the meals under false pretences. At West Ham, indeed, the Education Committee has interpreted the Provision of Meals Act to mean that recovery must be attempted in every case where meals are supplied. When a parent applies for meals for his children on the score of being unable to provide for them himself—for only necessitous children are fed, no provision being made for voluntary payment—he has to sign a form by which he agrees to repay the cost of all meals which have been supplied when he gets back into work and can afford to do so. Moreover, he has to send a note every day saying that he still wishes his children to be fed,[^[321]] this being insisted on as a proof that meals have been supplied in the event of an attempt at recovery. In any case the full cost is rarely charged, the wage and the number of children being taken into consideration, and a rebate of sometimes as much as 75 per cent. being granted. But as a matter of fact very few accounts are sent to the Borough Treasurer for collection, as the wages of nearly all the parents of the children who are fed, even when they are in good work, are too small to allow of their paying for meals supplied in the past.[^[322]]

When the Local Education Authority is determined to provide food for all children who need it, for those who are underfed through the neglect of their parents to provide for them as well as for those whose parents are too poor to do so, a considerable amount ought to be recovered. The difficulty lies in the impossibility in many cases of securing sufficient evidence of the parent's ability to pay. Magistrates are notoriously loth to convict. At Bradford we were told that in numbers of cases magistrates' orders for payment had been served on the parents, but these orders were frequently disregarded by parents who knew the practical difficulties in the way of enforcing them.[^[323]]

Whether the amount due for meals which have been already supplied is paid by the parent or not, the commonest result of sending a notice that the Local Authority intends to recover the cost is that the parents refuse to allow their children any longer to receive the meals. "In practice it is found," says the Bootle School Canteen Committee, "that when action is taken to enforce payment the children are withdrawn by their parents from further participation in the meals, with the result that the children revert to their former ill-fed condition."[^[324]] At York, too, we were told that when a child who is found to be underfed through neglect is put on the feeding-list and a letter written to the father that he will be charged the cost of the meals, he invariably writes back demanding that his child shall be taken off the list. Nothing more is done and the child remains underfed. The Local Education Authorities are, indeed, "on the horns of a dilemma in dealing with such cases, as the Act obliges them to make this attempt to recover the cost, and they know that the only result of their doing so will be that the children are withdrawn from the meals."[^[325]] So much has the Bradford Education Authority felt this difficulty that they have more than once sought power, by inserting a clause in the local Bills promoted by the Corporation, to compel the attendance of children at meals in all cases in which the School Medical Officer certifies that the children are underfed, and to recover the cost. These efforts have so far proved useless, it being held that such a clause involves a new principle and cannot therefore be included in a local Act.[^[326]]

The question of dealing with neglectful parents is indeed beset with difficulties. Under the Children Act, 1908, a parent or guardian can be prosecuted for neglecting a child "in a manner likely to cause such child unnecessary suffering or injury to its health." This neglect is defined to mean those cases where the parent or guardian "fails to provide adequate food, clothing, medical aid or lodging," or, if unable to provide the same himself, fails to apply to the Guardians for relief.[^[327]] It is rare for the Local Education Authorities themselves to institute proceedings under this Act. Usually they prefer to refer cases to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Often an improvement in the condition of the child is effected as a result of the visits of this society's inspectors to the home. But when these warnings prove useless, frequently nothing more is done; the society are loth to prosecute, except in extreme cases when they can be practically certain of securing a conviction.