Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-dwq4g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-27T12:41:02.705Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Individual Taste or Collective Decision? Public Policy on School Meals*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2009

Richard Rose  and
Peter Falconer
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

School meals today are provided on a compromise basis; some pupils are charged and others are not. The compromise thus rejects two types of universalistic principles: allocating private benefits by the market and provision of merit goods collectively free of charge. The article examines, empirically and conceptually, the changing meaning of school meals; the demand and supply of school meals and the allocation of public subsidies to non-needy children; conflicting goals of expert nutritionists, egalitarians, redistributionists, efficient managers, and parents and children. The article concludes by considering political constraints on rationalising the programme in the name of universalistic principles. These constraints include the inheritance of commitments from previous governments, collective responsibility of spending and Treasury ministers; intra-party divisions between frontbench and backbench MPs; and low political salience of charging as an issue.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 21 , Issue 3 , July 1992 , pp. 349 - 373
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

SirBlack, Douglas (1980), Inequalities in Health, Report of a research working group, DHSS, London.Google Scholar
Central Statistical Office (1990), Social Trends 20, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
CIPFA (1989), School Meals Statistics at October 1988, Statistical Information Service, Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, London.Google Scholar
Craig, F.W.S. (1975), British General Election Manifestos 1900–1974, Macmillan, London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dalton, Lord (1953), Call Back Yesterday, Muller, London.Google Scholar
Davies, Bleddyn and Wiliamson, Valerie (1968), ‘School meals—short fall and poverty’, Social and Economic Administration, 2:1, 3–19.Google Scholar
Davies, Bleddyn (1978), Universality, Selectivity and Effectiveness in Social Policy, Heinemann, London.Google Scholar
Davies, Bleddyn (1980), ‘Policy options for charges and means tests’, in Judge, K. (ed.), Pricing the Social Services, Macmillan, London, pp. 132–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Day, Patricia and Klein, Rudolf (1987), Accountabilities, Tavistock, London.Google Scholar
Department of Education and Science (1975), Nutrition in Schools, Report of the Working Party on the Nutritional Aspects of School Meals, HMSO, LondonGoogle Scholar
Department of Education and Science (1990), The Government's Expenditure Plans 1990–91 to 1992–93, Cmnd.1011, Ch.ll, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Department of the Environment Audit Inspectorate (1983), Education: School Meals, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Department of Social Security (1990), The Government's Expenditure Plans 1990–91 to 1992–93, Cmnd.1014. Ch.14, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Education, Science and Arts Committee (1982), School Meals, House of Commons Report, 30 July 1982.Google Scholar
Foster, Peggy (1983), Access to Welfare: An Introduction to Welfare Rationing, Macmillan, London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Judge, K. (ed.) (1980), Pricing the Social Services, Macmillan, London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lowe, Rodney (1989), ‘Resignation at the Treasury: the Social Services Committee and the failure to reform the Welfare State, 1955–57’, Journal of Social Policy, 18:4, 505–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose, Richard (1986), ‘The dynamics of the welfare mix in Britain’, in Rose, R. and Shiratori, R. (eds), The Welfare State East and West, p.80–106, Oxford University Press, Oxford,.Google Scholar
Rose, Richard (1989), ‘Charges as contested signals’, Journal of Public Policy, 9:3, 261–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose, Richard (1990), ‘Charging for public services: a paradigm for practical analysis’, Public Administration, 68:3, 297–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose, Richard (1990a), ‘Inheritance before choice in public policy’, Journal of Theoretical Politics, 2:3, pp.263–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seldon, Arthur (1977), Charge, Temple Smith, London.Google Scholar
Times, periodical, The Times Guide to the House of Commons, Times Books, London.Google Scholar
Titmuss, Richard (1968), Commitment to Welfare, George Allen & Unwin, London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Der Eyken, W. (ed.) (1973), Education, the Child and Society, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth.Google Scholar
Weaver, Kent (1986), ‘The politics of blame avoidance’, Journal of Public Policy, 6:4, 371–998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, Paul (1981), Free School Meals, OPCS Social Survey Division Occasional Paper No.23.Google Scholar