Families in need will be able to get free school meals over the summer holiday after Powys County Council agreed to fund the scheme.

At the end of June, the Welsh Government advised that it was ending its support for free school meal provision for children during holidays and half terms.

The scheme was introduced during the pandemic to address ‘holiday hunger’ and help families struggling during the cost-of-living crisis.

Powys County Council has said it will now provide free school meal holiday vouchers to eligible families for the 2023 summer holidays after cabinet gave the go-ahead on Tuesday, July 18 to fund the vouchers, at a cost of about £280,000.

“The cost-of-living crisis has impacted all residents across the county but especially those from low-income backgrounds,” said deputy leader and cabinet member for a fairer Powys, Cllr Matthew Dorrance.

“As a council, we can help take some pressure off families who are struggling to make ends meet by providing free school meal holiday vouchers to eligible families.

"It is important that our children and young people can enjoy their summer holidays in the knowledge that there is food available for them.”

This one-off funding by the council will enable the provision of the school holiday meal vouchers for the 2023 summer holidays only. 

Vouchers will be issued during the summer holidays, which starts in Powys on Monday, July 24.

“The late notice that councils across Wales were given about this scheme stopping would have had a detrimental impact on low-income families,” said Councillor Jake Berriman.

“Not only would they lose out on the voucher scheme but they would also have had a very limited time to adjust their family finances accordingly.

“Our decision will help support those eligible families to provide food for their children during the summer holidays.”

Councillor David Thomas, added: “The voucher scheme introduced by the Welsh Government was a grant funded scheme so no existing budget has been allocated for this activity.

“To fund this scheme, we will draw the down the funding from the council’s central Risk budget.

"This is the right course of action to ensure that those families are able to feed their children during the summer holidays.”

A Welsh government spokesman said: "This summer, a wide range of holiday projects will be available across Wales, including the Food and Fun scheme, which we fund and will be available in all 22 local authority areas for the first time.

"We continue to support families through the cost of living crisis and have invested more than £3.3bn in programmes and schemes which put money back into people's pockets."