School meal uptake: 2023-24

New methodology from 2025 – Local Government Finance Statistics

From 2025, a new method of estimating school meal uptake has been introduced that combines school meal uptake data from the Local Government (LG) finance workbook LFR01 (LFR) with pupil roll and free school meal registrations data from the pupil census. Uptake rates are adjusted to take account of attendance for the year using published data from School attendance and absence statistics. See the Data and methodology section for details of the methodology. This new methodology meets the need for information on school meal uptake to monitor the impact of Scottish Government policies on reducing deprivation and promoting healthy eating.

Former data collection – Healthy Living Survey

In 2012, the Healthy Living Survey (HLS) was introduced which incorporated the old school meals survey and new questions on Physical Education. This was an annual survey, normally collected in February each year, from all publicly funded schools in Scotland. The school meal part of this survey collected information on the uptake of meals, both free and paid for, on a single day, as well as information on pupils registered for free school meals. The final HLS was conducted in February 2024 and discontinued in 2025.

Universal free school meal eligibility

In January 2015, the Government extended free school meal eligibility to include all children in P1-P3. This was extended again to include P4 in August 2021 and further extended to include P5 pupils from January 2022. For the purposes of this collection, it is assumed that all P1-P3 pupils were registered for free school meals until 2020 and all P1-P5 pupils from 2022.

Free school meal entitlement for all pupils in special schools was rolled out between January 2022 and January 2024.

National eligibility criteria for means tested free school meals

Eligibility for free school meals for secondary pupils and some primary stages is means tested. See School meals - mygov.scot for details.