Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Forty-First Report - COVID 19: the free school meals voucher scheme
Public Accounts Committee
HC 689
Published 5 February 2021
Conclusions (29)
2
Conclusion
The Department was surprisingly unconcerned about whether Edenred was profiting from the voucher scheme at taxpayers’ expense, and missed potential opportunities to reduce the cost or share in the profits. The Department’s policy team worked with commercial colleagues and the Crown Commercial Service in managing the contract with Edenred. Despite …
3
Conclusion
The Department did not have the information it needed to manage Edenred’s performance and understand whether the scheme was meeting the needs of 6 COVID 19: the free school meals voucher scheme families. At the start of the scheme, the Department received data from Edenred only on activity, such as …
4
Conclusion
The Department did not do enough to assess how far families had to travel to supermarkets in the scheme and whether coverage was adequate to meet needs. The Department worked with the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs to check there was at least one participating retailer in each …
5
Conclusion
Limitations in the data shared between the Department and the Department for Work & Pensions meant that support for vulnerable families with children eligible for free school meals could not be routed through the benefits system. In March 2020, the Department’s preferred option for support was an uplift to benefits …
1
Conclusion
On the basis of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, we took evidence from the Department for Education (the Department) and Edenred (UK Group) Ltd (Edenred) about the free school meals voucher scheme, which ran from 1 April 2020 to the end of the school summer holiday.1
6
Conclusion
The Department awarded a contract to administer the voucher scheme to a private contractor, Edenred.7 We asked the Department why it had gone down this route, and what alternative options it had considered to support pupils eligible for free school meals who were not attending school. The Department told us …
7
Conclusion
The other options the Department had considered, but ruled out, were: to make cash transfers to the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government or directly to local authorities to fund local arrangements for supporting vulnerable families; and to provide cash for schools to distribute directly to families of eligible …
8
Conclusion
The Department noted that an advantage of a voucher scheme was that it made it more likely that the money would be spent on food, which was the aim.11 We asked why the Department, having settled on a voucher scheme, had chosen Edenred to run it. The Department explained that …
9
Conclusion
Schools had a choice whether to use the national voucher scheme or to make local arrangements.13 The Department emphasised that all the options it had considered would have run alongside any arrangements that schools had made for themselves. It explained that, during the summer term, typically around 10% of schools …
10
Conclusion
In written evidence, the National Association of Head Teachers told us that many school leaders took immediate action to support pupils eligible for free school meals following the school closures. The responses included creating local schemes, using their existing catering contracts, and purchasing supermarket vouchers from their own reserves. The …
11
Conclusion
Schools taking part in the scheme ordered electronic codes (eCodes) online that could be converted into shopping vouchers for families to use at nominated supermarkets.17 The Department told us that a reason for selecting Edenred to run the scheme was that Edenred already had established relationships with some supermarket chains, …
12
Conclusion
The Department told us that the vast majority of families had easy access to participating retailers but acknowledged that, at the outset of the scheme, there were some families further from stores than it wanted. It said that it sought to have as many people as close as possible to …
13
Conclusion
The Catholic Education Service wrote to tell us that families in remote, isolated communities struggled to find an appropriate shop from which to purchase food, due to the limited number of supermarket chains taking part in the scheme.23 In its written evidence, the National Association of Head Teachers said that …
14
Conclusion
Edenred told us that setting up the voucher scheme in two weeks meant that it had to start with those supermarket chains with which it had an existing relationship. It then held discussions with other chains aiming, by increasing the number of participating 17 C&AG’s Report, para 3 18 Q …
15
Conclusion
Over 11,000 school administrators registered immediately after the voucher scheme opened. By August 2020, 20,717 schools had registered for the scheme (94% of state schools in England).28
16
Conclusion
The Department acknowledged that there was a period early in the scheme when parents and schools experienced quite a lot of difficulty and disruption in getting access to the vouchers. It said that it had underestimated the extent to which parents and schools would want to talk to a human …
17
Conclusion
The number of calls each day to Edenred’s telephone helpline increased rapidly, from 727 on 1 April 2020 to 3,940 on 14 April 2020. In the early weeks of the scheme, in April 2020, Edenred called on staff from other parts of its business to help handle the volume of …
18
Conclusion
In terms of things it could have done better, the Department said that, if it were to do the same thing again, it would try to find a way to do more user testing before the scheme started. The Department said that a lack of user-testing before the scheme was …
19
Conclusion
The Department recognised that the instructions for schools were not clear enough at the start of the scheme, and it also attributed this to its lack of user-testing.33 Edenred told us that it had not been able to engage with schools before the scheme was launched. It felt this would …
20
Conclusion
Edenred told us that it discovered, after implementing an improvement to its platform at the beginning of May 2020, that 40,000 eCodes it had emailed to parents had not been delivered because of incorrect email addresses. It said that it had built a new process to alert schools to the …
21
Conclusion
The Department accepted that there were many things about the scheme that could have been better. Both the Department and Edenred apologised to schools and parents who experienced difficulty and disruption. Edenred said that it was very sorry to families and schools who had a bad experience at the beginning …
22
Conclusion
The Department told us that, at the start of the scheme, it started collecting management information from Edenred twice daily. Initially it collected data only on the number of orders from schools and the number of vouchers ordered by parents.39
23
Conclusion
The Department did not systematically collect data on Edenred’s processing times, or how long it took people to access Edenred’s website to order eCodes or convert them into vouchers.40 It also did not monitor performance against the service-level indicator in Edenred’s framework contract that it should answer 90% of telephone …
24
Conclusion
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 …
25
Conclusion
The Department told us that it spent £384 million on the voucher scheme, in addition to the £1.2 billion funding for free school meals in schools every year.47 The Department signed an initial contract with Edenred on 28 March 2020, which ran to 26 April 2020 and had a value …
26
Conclusion
The Department told us that it was used to managing contracts, and that its policy team worked with commercial colleagues and the Crown Commercial Service in managing the contract with Edenred.49 In written evidence, the Department confirmed that it was not advised to seek to negotiate the contract terms at …
27
Conclusion
The Department paid Edenred the face value of eCodes issued to families, less any cancelled or expired codes, meaning that the final cost to the Department was the value of vouchers that families received.52 Under the terms of its framework contract, Edenred paid the Crown Commercial Service a management charge …
28
Conclusion
Edenred generated revenue from the scheme by buying vouchers from supermarket chains at a discount on their face value.55 It explained that it had individual arrangements with each supermarket participating in the scheme, but declined to share any details of its commercial arrangements on the grounds that the information was …
29
Conclusion
The contract included an open book arrangement giving the Department access to information about Edenred’s income and costs relating to the scheme. However, the Department did not make use of this arrangement during the course of the scheme.57 The Department told us that Edenred had subsequently shared with it some …