Investing in Children’s Future: - A Cost Benefit Analysis of Free School Meal

• Wider indirect benefits are generated over and above the core benefits, impacting the wider economy and supply chain.* *The benefits are all discounted meaning they are the present value of the benefits accruing in the future 3 Investing in Children’s Future: A Cost Benefit Analysis of Free School Meal Provision Expansion 1.3 How were these results calculated? 1 An initial scoping phase and a li. [...] 4 Investing in Children’s Future: A Cost Benefit Analysis of Free School Meal Provision Expansion 1.3.2 Developing a Theory of Change (ToC) The first stage of the CBA focused on developing a ToC to identify the spectrum of benefits that would result from the expansion of free school meal provision. [...] catch-up programmes).1 • Improved educational attainment in the medium term, leading to improved productivity and employment in the medium-to-longer term.2 The evidence also suggests a link between improved productivity and employment, contributing to improved lifetime earnings and wider contributions in the longer term.3,4 6 Investing in Children’s Future: A Cost Benefit Analysis of Free School M. [...] Total combined core and wider benefit: £25.1bn 9 Investing in Children’s Future: A Cost Benefit Analysis of Free School Meal Provision Expansion 1.4.2 Expansion scenario 2: Universal free school meals Total core benefit: Benefit-cost ratio (2025-2045): £41.3bn 1.71 Every £1 invested in this scenario is estimated to generate £1.71 in the core benefits. [...] 11 Investing in Children’s Future: A Cost Benefit Analysis of Free School Meal Provision Expansion 1.5 Limitations As expected with any project of this scale, there were some limitations in undertaking this analysis These included: • The use of secondary data to estimate costs and benefits for the CBA • The omission of wider benefits due to the lack of data (for example in relation to the wellbein.