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<p>The Department for Education introduced the eligibility checking system (ECS) to
reduce administrative burden and bureaucracy; speed up the eligibility checking process;
and to encourage take-up of Free School Meals (FSM) by removing stigma from the application
process. The ECS has been incredibly successful and is used by every local authority
in England. The introduction of the ECS has reduced the time normally taken to check
eligibility from several weeks to a matter of minutes in most cases, massively speeding
up the process to ensure free meals are swiftly made available to the most disadvantaged
students. No research has been conducted specifically looking at the link between
the introduction of the ECS and FSM take-up, however, we do know that under-registration
dropped by 3 percentage points[1] from 2012 to 2013.</p><p> </p><p>There are numerous
reasons why a parent/child might not claim for a free meal to which they are entitled,
and we are exploring what opportunities exist in the longer term to improve the way
in which disadvantaged pupils are identified and to make the free school meals registration
processes even more efficient.</p><p> </p><p>[1] Furtehr details are available in
the attached document.</p>
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