The Scottish government has agreed to a temporary funding increase to help provide free milk to all children attending pre-school nurseries.
The news will mean hundreds of thousands of young children across Scotland will benefit from consuming milk at nursery.
The Scottish Milk & Healthy Snack Scheme was launched in August 2021 with the aim of providing a free serving of milk and a healthy snack to children attending pre-school settings.
The decision by the Scottish government to boost funding followed a judicial review at the Court of Session last month.
Although the new scheme has worked well for many childcare settings, it had been a challenge for others, the judicial review found.
The School and Nursery Milk Alliance, a coalition of groups from the early years, education and dairy sectors, initially expressed concerns that the scheme had left many nurseries and childminders out of pocket.
They warned that this potentially caused young children to miss out on their free milk entitlement - the exact opposite of the scheme’s intention.
Judge Lord Braid concluded that the government did not undertake a proper consultation on a key aspect of the new scheme.
This was, namely, the actual funding per child per day, and also that the way that the funding rates were decided was irrational.
Responding, Jon Thornes, chairman of the alliance, commended the Scottish government for issuing a temporary funding increase to help improve the scheme.
"We hope that more settings will now register for the scheme in full confidence that they will receive sufficient funding to enable them to provide milk and a healthy snack to their children.
“The changes will also benefit those settings that are already registered but were finding that the funding they received was not enough to cover the full cost of providing the milk to their children – the increased funding will really help them."
He added: "We look forward to continuing to work with the Scottish government as they strive to develop a permanent solution that will ensure that all pre-school children in Scotland can enjoy a free daily serving of milk.”
