Bremner & Co’s leaders contribute to a new study on the implementation of the auto-enrolment process, published in The Lancet.
Building upon the success of the Fix Our Food auto-enrolment pilot, which has enabled over 20,000 additional children to access free school meals, a recent study’s abstract was published in The Lancet, co-authored by Bremner & Co’s Partner Dayna Brackley and Founder and CEO Myles Bremner. This study evaluates the implementation of this process across various local authorities in England.
It highlights the potential of auto-enrolment to increase registration rates among eligible children, particularly those from minority backgrounds, while also identifying challenges such as data access and information governance. These findings underscore the importance of stakeholder collaboration and suggest that a national rollout could sustainably support free school meal uptake and therefore enhance children’s nutrition.
Key Findings
The study paints a clear picture of both the challenges of implementing auto-enrolment for free school meals, and the potential benefits it offers to thousands of children.
In examining the experiences of local authorities across England, the research highlights:
- Leadership as a Driving Force: Initial progress in implementing auto-enrolment was largely propelled by strong leadership within local authorities, providing direction and momentum during the early stages.
- The Importance of Multi-Stakeholder Support: Sustained implementation required collaboration across multiple stakeholders, both within and beyond local authorities. External partnerships played a crucial role in addressing challenges and maintaining progress.
- Advancing Equity and Policy Development: Auto-enrolment showed promise in reaching those from minority backgrounds, thereby addressing inequities in free school meal provision. Additionally, the process enabled valuable data collection to inform and support broader policy development.
- Barriers to Success: The study identified the following obstacles that hindered implementation:
- Data Access and Governance Issues: Local authorities faced challenges in accessing and managing the data needed for auto-enrolment due to strict information governance protocols.
- Staffing Constraints: Limited staff capacity within local authorities posed significant hurdles to maintaining consistent implementation efforts.
Implications
The study finds that auto-enrolment aids free school meal uptake while supporting local policy development. Though implementation may come with its challenges, these can be temporarily mediated through stakeholder collaboration. Based on the findings, the study calls for a national rollout of the auto-enrolment process to sustainably support free school meal provision and children’s nutrition.
Read our previous blogs on the need for and success of the auto-enrolment process here, and listen to Myles on Breakfast with Georgey Spanswick on BBC Radio York here.
“At Fix Our Food, we are calling for Government to do the right thing, but also the simple thing. The Department for Work and Pensions holds all the benefits data on every household in this country. And the Department for Education holds all the schools data. They’re two big data sets, two big databases. They need to be brought together, and then an automatic registration can be found.” – Myles Bremner, Bremner & Co., on BBC Radio York.