The Case of The School Meals Service

Since 1979 British social policy has witnessed a marked abandonment of the post-war principles of “universalism” inspired by the Beveridge Report. A deliberately residualist approach has been adopted and narrower criteria of selection have variously been imposed in areas of social welfare provision. This paper represents an attempt to assess and evaluate this trend in one area of welfare provision — the school meals service — by developing a historical analysis of an earlier period (1918–1939) when a residual model of welfare firmly held sway. From an examination of historical evidence relating to the inter-war years, it is suggested that in important respects the present situation with regard to the provision of food for children while at school recreates many of the circumstances which pertained during that pre-war period. Then as now selectivity, “targeting”, and fierce Treasury restrictions upon public expenditure were very much the order of the day. In the light of the problems of administrative fragmentation, and of the failures, inconsistencies and injustices of those policies which characterized school meals provision during that earlier period, it is concluded that contemporary developments within this service are disquieting, and a close scrutiny of the nutritional and other consequences is essential.