More than £1m is owed by families across Scotland who are unable to pay for their children’s school meals, new research has found.
The report for the Aberlour children’s charity, seen exclusively by the Guardian, reveals the scale of school meal debt for the first time, and details an “alarming” rise in hidden hunger among Scotland’s school pupils.
Morag Treanor, the report’s author and a professor at the institute for social policy, housing and equalities research at Heriot-Watt University, said the £1m figure was just the tip of the iceberg.
The total of £1,032,500 is mainly owed by pupils in the final years of primary school. Children in the first five years of primary school receive universal free school meals in Scotland.
