Glasgow PVI settings enjoy free milk
All private, voluntary and independent nurseries in Glasgow will be provided with free milk in a new scheme from this week.
The Cool Milk initiative, in partnership with Glasgow City Council, aims to save nurseries time and administration costs. Previously, PVI nurseries have had to pay for milk in advance and then claim back the cost from the council after three months.
Every child under five is entitled to a free 189ml serving of milk if they attend registered daycare for more than two hours a day.
Semi-skimmed milk supplied by local farmers will be delivered by Cool Milk to up to 140 nurseries in Glasgow. The scheme will be invoiced directly from the dairies, which can also loan a free fridge and plastic beakers to store the milk.
Rosie the cow and local diary farmer James Rankin from Badenheath Farm helped launch the scheme at Little Me private day nursery in Glasgow on Monday.
The nursery children were treated to a milking demonstration and a talk on where milk comes from.
Nursery director Robert Clarke said, 'The scheme will do away with a lot of administration. Instead of us purchasing it, the milk will be supplied free and we won't need to claim it back, which takes a lot of time.'
The scheme could be extended to other areas in Scotland by Cool Milk, which already works with 46 local authorities in England and four in Wales.
Damian Howard-Pask, marketing manager at Cool Milk, said PVI nurseries were often unaware that they were able to claim back the cost of milk from their local authority or did not claim it back because of the paperwork involved.
A spokesperson for Glasgow City Council said, 'The facility to claim for milk has always been there for all registered early years services, but take-up has been patchy. Cool Milk will streamline the process, removing the administrative burden from PVI nurseries and hopefully ensuring that greater numbers of Glasgow's youngest children are able to receive free milk every day, thus helping us to improve their long-term health and welfare.'
