While the pithy quotes of Sir Humphrey Appleby in Yes Minister are still entirely apposite for the UK Civil Service, he was slightly mistaken when he said, ‘the three most unreliable things in public life are; Political Memoirs, Official Denials and Manifesto Promises’. What he had overlooked were spending commitments and the ability to count.

A perfect example of this problem can be seen with the School Food Trust to which the DfES and Big Lottery Fund had promised £60m so that it might ‘give independent support and advice to schools and parents to improve the standard of school meals’. This month, in the advertisement for the Trust’s Chief Executive Officer, the job specification says that the Trust will actually receive just ‘£15m grant-in-aid over three years from the DfES’. Perhaps the Big Lottery Fund will be making up the £45m difference, but if so they are being very quiet about it.

Worryingly, if £60m can become suddenly become £15m, how much might the government’s promised £280m, three-year funding package to solve the school meals crisis actually end up being?

• www.dfes.gov.uk