In conversation with… Kate Anstey

‘In conversation with…’ is a series of blog posts where I’ll be talking to inspirational people working in the world of food policy. 

Afternoon Kate, thanks for taking the time to chat with us! To start, what drew you to work on education and child poverty in the first place? 

I’ve always worked in charities that work with young people and have an education connection. I’ve found that working with young people has always been hugely valuable and it’s great to get their perspectives and spend time with them. I suppose it became very apparent through that work that while many interventions and programmes can make a difference day-to-day and can be very valued by children and young people, ultimately poverty, hardship, and income itself, are the things that are having the biggest impact and are statistically shown to be the strongest predictor of how well a child will achieve at school. I wanted to move into work that was really trying to address that root issue. CPAG is a brilliant charity for that; we do systemic work driving policy change. We’re lucky in the education team in that we get to do both the hard-hitting analysis, and the in-depth research with children and young people, getting a really rich understanding of their day-to-day experiences. That combination, I think, has been very powerful in influencing conversations and bringing something unique to the table, showing what’s genuinely happening in young people’s lives. Often policymakers can be very removed from that, and that’s the exciting part for me; being able to articulate why these things matter to children and young people in their own words; being able to piece it together in a holistic way.  

Policy work can be very fixated in in one particular area. But actually nothing happens in isolation. A child might be coming to school; they get told off because they don’t have the right uniform in the morning. Then they don’t have anything to eat at break time. It’s this sort of accumulation of experiences through the day that makes it that much harder.  

School food is a huge part of both education and poverty policy. From your perspective, what are the biggest barriers to ensuring that every child gets a nutritious meal at school? 

Most people support giving some children free lunches; that is generally accepted. The challenge we’re up against is whether the government should fund every child to have access. Currently, the government has decided that free meals are only for a small proportion of families, based on a very low-income threshold, which doesn’t account for family size. A family with four children just above the threshold won’t qualify, while a family with one child below the threshold does. At the moment, it only works for a small number of children. Research, like our evaluation of the mayor’s scheme in London, shows universal provision has benefits for everyone – it supports social inclusion, encourages children to try new foods, helps with calmer afternoons – with families on lower incomes disproportionately positively affected. 

We accept school as a public service. People are very happy that there’s this free education offer; classrooms, teachers, books, desks. But for some reason lunchtime is seen differently, rather than seen as a fundamental part of the school day. Breaking that down and showing how crucial lunch is to the school day is important.   

It also comes down to the value for money. Universal free school meals are extremely well targeted at children. It’s very rare to get a policy where you are going to reach so many children so directly. Investing in children benefits us all now and in the future.  

Something you’ve said before has really stuck with me, which was ‘if you’re legally required to be there, then you should be fed’. 

You can access the NHS, and you don’t have to have any proof of your income level. You just get given a meal at the point of access. I can’t understand why, when we’re talking about children, that same principle shouldn’t apply. 

CPAG has long campaigned for universal free school meals. What do you think it will take to make that a reality in England? 

I think that there’s now strong consensus that the current income-threshold is outdated and too low and is not working. On the universal front, to make it a reality in England requires the kitchen sink approach. The more voices that come together on this, the better. Education, health, local authorities, mayors, councillors, dentists, faith leaders. If all corners, and all areas, and all sectors talk about this, it raises the profile. Importantly, families and young people and their views must be central. When talking to MPs and decision-makers, stories stay with them and come up in debates. So, we need to make sure we’re getting those stories through. We hear a lot about flooding MP inboxes to make this a top issue. We also need to join the dots and show why different departments should care about it, not just DfE. Ultimately, we need the Prime Minister to care about this issue. 

With a Labour government in power, what policy shifts are you hoping to see in relation to education and poverty? Are there any areas where you think they need to be more ambitious? 

Certainly. We know a child poverty strategy is coming later this year. From CPAG’s perspective, and across the education sector, that child poverty strategy won’t be worth the paper it’s written on unless it does something to increase household incomes for those families struggling the most.  

By far the most cost-effective way to reduce child poverty is to scrap the two-child limit policy, which caps the amount of universal credit support families with three or more children can recieve. That policy alone pulls 109 families into poverty every day. If the government scrapped it overnight, it would lift 350,000 children out of poverty.  You’d have to spend a lot more money to have that same effect elsewhere. It would cost around £2 billion to scrap the two-child limit, and although we want the child poverty strategy to do a huge amount more than that, it has to be the first step.  

There are things in schools that, sadly, compound that poverty, and the current free school meals threshold is one of them, and this must be addressed. We really want the government to look at bringing down the cost of the school day for families. If uniform costs too much, it can mean children don’t attend school. If the transport costs too much, then it’s harder to get to school. If we’re talking about specific policies, a first point would be to help families with the cost of uniform in addition to free school meals, because in all other UK nations, there is government support for lower income families with the cost of uniform, and there is nothing like that in England. So, I think scrapping the two-child limit, expanding  free school meals and support with uniform costs would be a good starting point. 

Advocating for change in poverty and education policy comes with both challenges and rewards. What do you find toughest about campaigning in this space, and what aspects keep you motivated? 

We look at evidence and focus on what would make the biggest difference. Even if the goal isn’t yet achieved, it’s important to recognise that things are shifting. The Mayor of London’s policy means hundreds of thousands of children now get a meal every day. CPAG was among the groups calling for that. Auto-enrolment work at local authority level, showing increasing numbers of children being identified for free school meals, also matters. During the pandemic, the government made it permanent for families with no recourse to public funds to access free school meals – that’s huge. We know what a school meal can do for one family, and we must acknowledge those moments.  

CPAG does a lot of work amplifying the voices of families affected by poverty. Are there any stories that have particularly stuck with you? 

We do hear some incredibly heartbreaking stories. I suppose one thing that’s on my mind a lot at the moment is that secondary school pupils in particular are being forgotten, and their experiences are very different to primary children. The policies seem to get harsher at secondary school, and there’s a lot more pressure. At primary school, there’s a lot more nurturing of families, and pastoral work. However, at secondary we’re hearing more and more that pupils are giving friends food at lunchtime, or lending money, or helping them out with the payment for a school r a school trip, or making sure they can take part in the fundraising event. And these things shouldn’t be happening. It shouldn’t be on young people. They understand what it feels like to miss out and want to make sure their friends don’t have to go through that. We certainly want to keep putting a focus on the experiences of secondary school pupils in our work. 

And finally, what’s for dinner tonight? 

Well, the sad reality is that my oven is currently broken, so I don’t know what’s going to happen this evening, because I thought it was going to be fixed by now! 

Edited by Harry Mackay.