The Education (Scotland) Act 1980 (Modification) Regulations 2025: equality impact assessment

Background

The Scottish Government continues to provide support through a range of family-friendly policies, including the expansion of our free school meals programme. Free school meals are now available for children in primaries 6 and 7 if their families are in receipt of the Scottish Child Payment. In addition, free school meals continue to be universally available for all children in primaries 1 to 5, and in special schools.

To ensure families continue to receive free school meals from 1 April 2025, the Education (Scotland) Act 1980 (Modification) Regulations 2025 came in to force and increased the maximum income levels at which families are eligible to receive free school meals for their children. These Regulations are relevant to families of pupils in secondary schools, where neither universal nor extended free school meal provision is currently available.

These Regulations apply to families who receive free school meals as a result of being in receipt of Universal Credit, and the Regulations have increased the maximum monthly earned income level from £796 to £850 following this latest increase in the National Living Wage.

To ensure eligible families remain protected, the process of laying Regulations to amend the free school meals eligibility criteria for families in receipt of Universal Credit has been in operation each year since 2019 to account for annual increases to the National Living Wage.

In previous years, those Regulations have also increased the maximum income level for families eligible to receive free school meals as a result of being in receipt of both child tax credit and working tax credit. However, the tax credits system will end on 5 April 2025 and all families previously in receipt of tax credits will have been migrated to Universal Credit. Tax credits will therefore cease to be an eligible qualifying benefit to receive free school meals after this date. Accordingly, the Regulations will also omit some redundant tax credit provisions

These Regulations do not affect the free school meals eligibility criteria for families who are in receipt of qualifying benefits other than Universal Credit. Further information about the eligibility criteria for free school meals is available through the following web link: Free school meals - mygov.scot.