Nursery World - Scottish nursery milk scheme ruled to be 'unlawful'

A scheme to provide free milk to children attending early years settings in Scotland has been declared ‘unlawful’ and ‘irrational’ by a judge in a landmark ruling against the Scottish government.

A judge found Scotland's pre-school milk scheme to be 'unlawful' PHOTO Adobe Stock

Under the Scottish Milk and Healthy Snack scheme, pre-school children who attend nursery or a childminding setting receive a third of a pint of milk and a healthy snack such as fruit every day.

It replaced the former UK wide free nursery milk scheme last August. This scheme is still open to early years settings in England.

However, concerns had been raised that the new scheme was leaving many nurseries and childminders ‘out of pocket’, potentially causing children to miss out on their free milk entitlement, because of the way it is funded.

Under the previous UK-wide scheme, the actual costs of providing the milk to children was reimbursed, whereas with the Scottish Milk and Healthy Snack Scheme, funding is provided by periodical payments made in advance to councils based upon a weighted average, which is set by the Scottish government for each local authority.

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