Recommendation 24

In April 2020, schools had to wait over 42 minutes on average to access Edenred’s website.44 In written evidence, Truro and Penrith Academy Trust told us that its school business manager had to try uploading the school’s orders to Edenred’s website in the middle of the night, for several nights in a row, and that website traffic was better in the 35 Q 95 36 Q 90 37 Supplementary written evidence from the Department for Education 38 Qq 37, 136 39 Qq 82, 84 40 C&AG’s Report, paras 3.11, 3.19 41 C&AG’s Report, para 3.18, Figure 5 42 Q 87 43 C&AG’s Report, paras 3.15, 3.18 44 C&AG’s Report, para 3.19 COVID 19: the free school meals voucher scheme 13 early hours of the morning.45 The Association of School and College Leaders told us that performance improved over the duration of the voucher scheme and that, at the end of the period, the scheme was working for schools.46 Costs to the taxpayer