School food has been the focus for a wide range of public policy interventions in the 21st Century. As Table 1 shows, campaigners, interest groups and government have all contributed to debates and developments. The interventions have taken the form of exposes, demonstration projects, legislation, setting of standards, and policy provisions. The substantive focus of this work has covered nutrition, benefit entitlement, poverty proofing and service delivery. Within Scotland, some initiatives are local, while others are Scotlandwide. Developments beyond Scotland have also shaped thinking within, both from UK-wide debates on school meals, as well as local developments from other parts of the UK.

The purpose of this chapter is not to detail all of the interventions that have been listed in Table 1, as it is likely that most readers of this report will already be familiar with these. Rather, with the focus of this report on FSMs, the present objective is to demonstrate how a wide range of interventions-that vary in the degree to which free provision is the central focus–shape the provision of FSMs in Scotland. Four ‘pathways to progress’ are described; valuing FSMs by supporting something else (2.2. 1); positioning FSMs as being part of something bigger (2.2. 2); improving FSMs by driving up standards for all (2.2. 3); and determining provision for FSMs (2.2. 4). For each, reference is made to the range of recent interventions of that ilk, with one example used to demonstrate impact on how FSMs are provided in Scotland.