"Funding would continue for the "immediate few years" while officials worked out what the alternative programme would look like"

How about you figure out what that program might be before you decide to start cutting the funding. They are working backwards trying to solve the wrong part of the problem.

Instead of looking at the education system and saying this lunch program isn't meeting our goals let's try this new solution. They are saying we need to cut spending, here is a lunch program that costs a lot let's see how we can justify getting rid of this. Oh no people are mad what can we replace this program with.