Education (Administrative Provisions) Bill, December 8, 1908; February 19, 1909; April 14, 1910; February 19, 1912; April 15, 1913. In 1911-1912, out of 322 Local Education Authorities in England and Wales, 131 were returned as making some provision for the feeding of school children (_i.e._ 13 counties, including London, 57 County Boroughs, 35 Boroughs and 26 Urban Districts).[184] Of these 95 were spending rates on the provision of food; 19 were spending rates on administrative charges only (accommodation, apparatus, etc.), the cost of food being borne by voluntary funds; whilst in the remaining 17 areas[185] the cost of both food and administration was met by voluntary contributions. Footnote 184: Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1911, pp. 320-322, 329. Footnote 185: The most important of these are Leicester, Sunderland, and Barnsley. The steady decrease in the amount derived from voluntary contributions, and the increase in rates are shown by the following table :--[186] Rates L Voluntary Miscellaneous sources Total. Contribution L (contributions from parents, Poor Law Guardians, etc.) L For the year 67,524 17,831 335 85,690 1908-9 For the year 125,372 9,813 906 136,091 1909-10 For the year 140,875 7,537 1,370 149,782 1910-11 For the year 151,763 3,064 2,292 157,127 1911-12 Footnote 186: See Report on the Working of the Education (Provision of Meals) Act up to March 31, 1909, p. 30, and (for London) p. 24; ditto for the year ended March 31, 1910, p. 20; Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1910, p. 309; ditto for 1911, p. 332. The voluntary contributions are understated in the figures for 1908-9, and possibly throughout. The returns for 1908-9, for instance, do not include Liverpool, where the whole cost was defrayed by voluntary contributions, and no financial details were supplied to the Board. The discrepancy in the total for 1911-12 is due to the fact that the figures in the several columns are not given exactly, but to the nearest L. The total number of children fed is given in the returns for 1911 as 124,685.[187] This, however, does not include a few counties and towns which did not return the number fed during the year. In most of these areas the number fed is very small, but at Barnsley the number attending daily was about 2,917, and in London the highest number fed in any one week during the year was 44,983. If we take these figures as representing roughly between two-fifths and one half of the total number of children who were fed at some time or other during the year, we get a total of about 230,000,[188] out of a total school population of 5,357,567.[189]