Wrexham has rolled out free primary school meals across the county borough at a faster pace than the rest of Wales according to the latest data.

But schools within the authority are facing challenges around the cost of additional lunchtime staffing - something for which the Welsh Government has provided no funding.

Wrexham has seen 78% of pupils take up access to free hot lunches through the Welsh Government's Universal Primary Free School Meals (UPFSM) programme, above the national average of 70%.

This includes offering free school meals to year five and six pupils 12 months before it was required to do so.

Prior to UPFSM, the average number of meals served per day to children in
Reception to Year 6 in Wrexham was 4,739. By July this year that had increased by around 70% to 8,071.

"In Wrexham we are reporting an uptake of 78.8%", Simon Billington, ICT and infrastructure Manager for Wrexham Council told the council's Lifelong Learning Scrutiny Committee.

"That is significantly higher than the Welsh average of 70%, that's a success for the rollout.

"We also rolled out year's five and six a year early - the Welsh Government gave targets of September 2024 to roll that out but we managed to do that - through the work on the Housing Department who were responsible for it at the time - in September 2023.

"When you look sat the numbers that's an awful lot of children now that benefit from free school meals that previously didn't."

Wrexham County Borough Council was allocated £1,071,512 by the Welsh Government in 2021/22 to purchase equipment and upgrade kitchen
and dining facilities at primary schools.  The following year a further £1,500,117 of capital funding was allocated for more upgrade works.

Wrexham's school meals team recruited an additional 60 kitchen staff to support the roll out and extended working hours for cooks and kitchen assistants in most schools. But lunchtime supervision costs are not covered.

Some schools are now facing increased costs as they need lunchtime supervisors to cover longer lunch periods.

Brendan McDonald, who sits on the committee as a church representative said: "Some schools I've spoken with have had to employ more lunchtime supervisors.

"With the negative budget situation at the moment that is having an impact, albeit small.

"The take-up is fantastic, but do you foresee any further funding to support the progression you're trying to make so the system can move fluidly?"

At this point no further Welsh Government funding for lunchtime supervision is in the pipeline however.

"Schools are having to find additional provision for the serving of meals during the lunch hour," said Cllr Phil Wynn, Lead Member for Education.  "There was no financial assistance that came from the Welsh Government for additional teaching assistant time or any other requirements for supervising those meals."

"We're not aware of any additional funding," added Mr Billington. "The majority of the funding we received was capital, to upgrade kitchens and furniture and to help with efficiency of delivering extra school meals."