North Northamptonshire Council Holiday Food and Back to School essentials vouchers

25 November 2025

North Northamptonshire Council is distributing Holiday Food vouchers and Back to School essentials vouchers via funds from the UK Government as part of the Household Support Fund (HSF).

The Free School Meal (FSM) Holiday voucher will be distributed to schools as one voucher throughout the month of December to include payments covering Christmas, February Half Term and Easter. The overall amount each student will receive via the school will be £90 to cover all three coming holidays.

In addition to this, we will also be offering the ‘Back to School essentials’ payment at a value of £15 per student. This, in total, will equate to an overall payment of £105 per student. Eligible families will receive the voucher via email. They will have until the end of January 2026 to redeem the voucher.

Once the voucher is redeemed at the chosen supermarket they will have 12-24 months to spend in its entirety, depended on supermarket’s T&C’s. Vouchers do not have to be spent in one go once redeemed and we recommend spreading the use of vouchers to cover the remaining holidays.

We understand that this change may cause families concern when they do not receive another voucher in February half term and Easter Holidays in 2026. There is further support available for families:

• Visit the Family Hubs website  
• Find information and support on the Healthy Schools service web page
• The local 0-19 years service provides information outside of financial aid to offer support through any difficult times. 

We are committed to helping North Northamptonshire's residents impacted by the continued cost of living crisis and by allocating this welcome money from the Household Support Fund to families who need it the most, we hope to ease a little of the financial strain that continues.Cllr Gregory Wilcox, North Northamptonshire Council's Executive Member for Communities

Any queries on the scheme can be emailed to [email protected]