Holiday Hunger payments approved in last meeting before summer break

Summer holiday food payments to support families in need have been given the go-ahead just days before schools break up.

The decision came in by Flintshire council’s final meeting before the authority’s recess.

Families who qualify for free school meals during term-time will now receive a £50 one-off payment to replace those school dinners, helping them to feed their children during the six-week break.

According to the Children’s Commissioner for Wales, approximately 30% of children in Wales live in poverty, with 26% of those living in working households.

Those children are acutely aware of their situation too, with 45% of children aged 7–11 across Wales feeling anxiety about having enough to eat.

Relative poverty

Despite this data, Welsh Government withdrew funding for school meals during the holidays last year. With 4,933 children in Flintshire classed as living in relative poverty by the Department for Work and Pensions, the authority decided to continue supporting families in need resulting in Holiday Hunger payments being made last summer.

Now councillors have agreed to make those payments again at a cost of £260,000.

“The Holiday Hunger working group recommends continuing with the payments scheme in Summer 2025 before exploring more sustainable solutions to be implemented early 2026,” said Cabinet Member for Education, Welsh Language, Culture and Leisure Cllr Mared Eastwood.

But this will be the last summer the authority makes the payments, with plans to explore different ways to relieve food poverty for families from 2026.

It has agreed to ask its Holiday Hunger working group to explore sustainable ways to deliver support for families in poverty while reducing the council’s financial contribution from next year.

This will involve seeking businesses or social enterprise groups that specialise in delivering food poverty support and exploring options to improve access to healthy food.

Mobile shops

Initial ideas under consideration include mobile shops, meal centres, doorstep delivery schemes, meal-box programmes or refrigerated community lockers where fresh food can be accessed by those who are eligible.

“The working group is concerned about the effectiveness of the holiday payments scheme,” said Cllr Eastwood. “It is short-term, a sizeable cost to the authority, it’s effectiveness cannot be measured and it has no links to a sustainable solution.”

Jen Griffiths, Flintshire County Council’s service manager for Housing, Welfare and Communities added: “A relatively small amount per household costs a significant amount to the council.

“There’s no way of measuring that spending so we don’t know how effective it is and whether it really makes a difference.

“The group also felt continuing payments as we are would become self-fulfilling, so would have carried on every single year.

“As a result we’re looking to do something more sustainable with that money that would lead to a cost-neutral position for the council by year five. This autumn the group will look at what’s out there and who could help provide the solutions we are looking for.”