Scottish School Milk Subsidy Scheme - Equality Impact Assessment Results

Background

The Scottish Government is committed to eradicating child poverty and has a range of actions in place to help support families.

From June 2024, local authorities could no longer apply for subsidy towards their local school milk schemes from the UK scheme administered by the RPA. The Scottish School Milk Subsidy Scheme was developed to ensure that funding continued to be provided to local authorities towards their local school milk schemes.

The Scottish School Milk Subsidy Scheme provides funding to local authorities to deliver local school milk schemes which will widen access to ensure our children’s health benefits from the nutrition available through dairy products and alternatives where they cannot or choose not to consume dairy.

The provision of funding for local school milk subsidy schemes aligns directly to the Scottish Government’s efforts to eradicate child poverty by supporting the nutritional needs of children. It also meets the aims of the Best Start Bright Futures: tackling child poverty delivery plan by helping to reduce costs on families, particularly during the current financially challenging times, and supporting the next generation to thrive.

This policy will affect all eligible primary and special school pupils attending public schools in Scotland, where they consume milk (or an alternative to ensure equity) provided as part of a local school milk scheme based on locally set criteria.

The policy is intended to provide equality of support to all eligible pupils, based on locally set criteria, attending public primary and special schools where a milk scheme is offered or as part of the Free School Meal programme within their schools. As the focus of local school milk schemes is to provide subsidised school milk, or support the provision of free milk, the funding from the Scottish School Milk Subsidy Scheme will benefit children and young people from low income families in particular.