PLANS to supply every primary school child in Wales with free school dinners have raised fears that Conwy could be lumped with footing the bill in years to come.

This week cabinet members discussed how the Welsh Government plans to expand their free school meal scheme, offering all children in Wales a healthy meal – free of charge.

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Currently, some children from families on low incomes receive free meals, but the scheme will be rolled out to all infants in September 2022.

Older primary school children will then receive the free meals the following September in 2023.

The Welsh Government estimates 80% of parents will take up the offer. The other 20% are anticipated to continue with lunchbox meals.

This means in September 2022, in Conwy, free school meals will increase by around 56% from 3,504 to 5480 meals per day.

In September 2023 juniors will also be entitled to a free school meal, meaning the number of school dinners is anticipated to increase from 5,480 to 7,306 meals per day.

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But at a cabinet meeting this week, But at a cabinet meeting this week, councillors heard how the increased number of meals would also affect staffing levels and mean improvements would need to be made to school kitchens.

Consequently, the scheme is expected to cost Conwy council an additional £1.35m in its first year and £2.49m in 2023/24.

Across Wales, the Welsh Government has allocated grants of £40m in 2022/23, £70m in 2023/24 and £90m in 2024/25 to pay for the scheme.

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Cabinet member for education Cllr Julie Fallon said Conwy needed to ensure Welsh Government funded and continued to fund the scheme themselves.

“In the financial year 2025/26 and beyond, it’s anticipated the offer of a school free meal will continue, but it’s expected this funding will be part of the rates support grant, so there’s some concern around this funding, and it should need to be ringfenced moving forward and the inflation protected at both a national level and local level to ensure there is no impact on us as a local authority and individual school budgets as well,” she said.

“This is really important. We need to highlight to Welsh Government that money is supported moving forward because this is great, but we need to make sure we can sustain it. We just need to make sure Welsh Government fund it and fund it indefinitely.”

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The fears follow the council receiving a huge 9.5% increase this year in their annual settlement from Welsh Government, but councillors complained the amount was less as financial burdens on local authorities increased.