Free School Meals: Voucher Schemes

(asked on 18th May 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the average time taken was for an application for free school meals to be accepted and for food vouchers to be received in the most recent period for which figures are available.


Answered by
Vicky Ford Portrait
Vicky Ford
This question was answered on 27th May 2020

As both my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer have made clear, the government will do whatever it takes to support people affected by COVID-19.

Our latest guidance for schools is set out below:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-for-schools-and-other-educational-settings.

These are rapidly developing circumstances; we continue to keep the situation under review and will keep Parliament updated accordingly.

During this period, we are asking schools to support children who are eligible for and claiming benefits-related free school meals, by providing meals or food parcels through their existing food providers wherever possible. However, we recognise that providing meals and food parcels is not a practicable option for all schools. That is why on 31 March we launched a national voucher scheme as an alternative option, with costs covered by the Department for Education.

Schools are best placed to make decisions about the most appropriate arrangements for eligible pupils and this can include food parcel arrangements, alternative voucher arrangements or provision through the national voucher scheme. Some schools may adopt a combination of these approaches. We do not hold data at a pupil or family level for the national voucher scheme. However, the supplier, Edenred has reported that 17,000 schools had placed orders for the scheme as of Tuesday 12 May. Edenred has also reported that that over £101.5 million worth of voucher codes has been redeemed into supermarket eGift cards by schools and families through the scheme as of Friday 22 May.

The overall number and proportion of students who qualify for free school meals is published in the ‘Schools, pupils and their characteristics’ publication and its underlying data files. As of the 2019 school census, there are around 1.3 million children eligible for and claiming free school meals. More recent figures are not yet available. The 2019 publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2019.

The responsibility for checking the eligibility of applicants for free school meals rests with the individual school. However, many schools will choose to work with local authorities to carry out these checks via our Eligibility Checking System. The department does not hold details of when applications are submitted locally for free school meals and we do not hold data on the time that may elapse between an application and the receipt of meals or vouchers. These arrangements are managed locally.

We have been working very closely with Edenred to improve the performance of the national voucher scheme, including in relation to the waiting times that parents and schools have experienced when accessing the system. We are very grateful to families and schools for their understanding and patience while this service has been upgraded to meet increased demand.

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