Participants reflected on the roles of national, regional and local government as well as the public, private and third sectors in implementing and delivering holiday provision. Participants considered that the responsibility of holiday provision ‘lies with the whole of society’ and outlined the roles for each sector of society.
At the state and policy level, six participants suggested that national government should play a greater role in supporting holiday provision through funding and regulation. Policymakers and key stakeholders supported the implementation of statutory holiday provision supported by state funding.
‘We very much believe that there needs to be a long term policy solution to this and we would advocate the government spends money on this area to tackle this problem. Whether they are the sole funder, I think that would do disservice to the amount of work community groups and businesses are already doing to bring together resources to this but there may be a collaborative approach to this.’ (key stakeholder, 10)
However, policymakers also highlighted the challenge of implementing holiday provision on a statutory basis whilst maintaining private sector support and funding for the projects.
‘Once you say it’s statutory you are much less likely to get private money into it; if it’s something that is voluntary and seen as an additional sort of charitable activity, in a way not statutory, you are much more likely to get private money but I think the most important thing is that we get universal coverage, every single child deserves to have decent food and have the right to food actually.’ (policymaker 2)
Furthermore, participants highlighted that, alongside statutory financial support for holiday provision, there is a need for central government to introduce legislation to ensure all food served at holiday provision is nutritious. One policymaker discussed how the food served should meet current School Food Standards.
‘The minute there is any statutory money then I think the standards do need to apply that apply to school food in the same sort of way. As that is what people will expect.’
(policymaker, 1)
One participant recommended that national government should play a more central role in supporting low income families with additional financial support during the school holidays to address the significant and root causes of holiday hunger rather than the symptoms.
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‘I think they should get extra money in the school holidays, their parents should get more money in the school holidays, give them the amount of the free school meal per child so that’s the social policy side of it. If you’ve got a government that is prepared to listen, that is and wouldn’t be so cruel. That would be the way forward. Until we got more people into work, that would be the backup. So however much, I don’t know, something like two pounds a day or whatever, you would give them that in benefit, you would increase the benefit over the six weeks so that’s how you would do it for families.’ (policymaker, 3)
At the local authority level, nine participants discussed the role and responsibilities of local government in facilitating holiday provision. Policymakers and key stakeholders proposed that local authorities should develop a strategic response and framework for holiday provision within their region. Furthermore, participants suggested that local authorities should assume a more pivotal role in coordinating holiday provision within their region to help develop partnerships across public and private organisations.
‘Local authorities are expected to provide an enabling environment and do what they can and support venue provision, link up sites that can host provision.’ (key stakeholder, 7)
In addition to enhancing partnerships with private and public organisations, participants suggested that local authorities should examine the role of schools in supporting families in need during the school holidays. One participant suggested that local authorities should encourage schools to be further involved in delivering holiday provision.
‘There is a role for local authorities as well, I think, trying to coordinate what is going on and not only coordinate what is going on but be an open door in promoting to schools to provide that umbrella space and service which, I think, came through in one of the sessions as being one of the barriers that you’ve got a few individual schools that might do it but it is very rare and you’ve got acceptance from local authorities that it is an issue and
acceptance of responsibility that they could be playing a role in this and if they don’t have the funding, which I’m sure most of them don’t, at the very least advocating to schools that this is something that they could or should consider and advocating some of the other places that have done it.’ (key stakeholder, 10)
That said, the academisation of the school system means that many schools are no longer controlled by local authorities but are operated by academy trusts and receive funding directly from central government. In these cases, local authorities lack the ability to influence the role of schools in holiday provision.
An additional role for local authorities, discussed by participants, is improving access to existing provision. Two participants reflected on the need for local authorities to invest in local provision either by improving existing leisure and play facilities or by enabling activities such as swimming to be available free of charge during the school holidays. Whilst participants supported a greater role for local authorities in coordinating and facilitating holiday provision, one stakeholder
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reflected on how continuous cuts to local authority budgets and personnel made it difficult for local authorities to commit over the long term.
‘We just thought in XX it would be a one-off, mainly because of capacity. The officers who facilitated this for me in my team, I didn’t know if they would have jobs here next year in the summer, so we couldn’t say to people straight after the events had finished, oh well we’ll see you next year, it just wasn’t an option. It wasn’t until January or February the following year that we could contact them because that’s when we found out that we had jobs. That sounds odd but unfortunately that’s the way of local government at the moment, you don’t know where you sit. So you couldn’t, in a lot of cases, do forward planning and again the same thing this year. For all we know at Christmas this year or in February we could all get our at-risk letters … so for that reason we didn’t want to forward plan or raise expectations in the community that this was going to happen next year, that’ll be all singing all dancing, all we could say was that we’ll try and see if we could offer it.’ (key stakeholder, 1)
Participants reiterated the need for developing partnerships within both public and private sectors such as food and catering suppliers and play providers to facilitate the development of holiday provision and secure further funding. Twelve participants envisaged that a more collaborative approach would enable delivery partners to deliver a more frequent provision or encourage a more extensive programme of activities. One key stakeholder discussed the benefits of developing partnerships and connecting to a range of different organisations.
‘I think it has to be a collaborative approach, it can’t fall on one person, I think it needs to be. We need to take into consideration that every stakeholder would have really key skills and the benefits they can bring and all together that would make the success of a
programme.’ (key stakeholder, 8)
Participants agreed that holiday provision should continue to be delivered through community- based organisations whilst expanding school-based provision. One participant highlighted the benefit of an increased involvement of schools in holiday provision to help the sustainability of this type of provision.
‘We’ve been planning and thinking of an exit strategy and a sustainability project. We see that schools, schools could be a big deliverer of this but saying that it doesn’t mean it has to use the structures within the schools, the community could run the structures within the schools, we need the schools to buy into that thinking.’ (key stakeholder, 1)
Four participants envisaged that a sustainable model of holiday provision comprised a community asset-based approach where community members are actively involved in the planning of holiday provision.
‘I would like to see the church providing the space and saying ok we need to have food hygiene and we’ll provide all that and get some funding but actually have an open meeting and get people in and say, what shall we do, as broad as that. I think that that is a far more
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sustainable model than you know the top down approach, the service delivery model.’ (key stakeholder, 2)
Participants reported that the flexibility is a real benefit of the commission-led model and this lends itself to models that can be offered by a wide range of community based organisations and schools.
‘So that’s the plan that we roll it out over further venues um but we are also looking, because this is such a lovely model and such a flexible model, we've made contact with [voluntary agency] so we can link up with their scheme, part of that is a little volunteering scheme for people that are retired, so we would like to use them, in whatever capacity they want, so it could be assisted reading, it could be they help to serve the food, it could be that they just have some company and they spend some one-to-one time with the children but it is reducing isolation in that older part of the population.’ (key stakeholder, 4)