Following work in his capacity as Chair of the Education Committee, Robert Halfon MP has secured changes to the current National Voucher Scheme, meaning that all schools will be able to provide meals during half-term, for those children who would be receiving them if schools were open.
Robert said: “I’ve been working very hard to ensure that every child, who usually receives free school meals when schools are open, will continue to do so throughout the half-term break.
“I’ve also been lobbying the Government to make sure that the challenges schools were facing in accessing the Government’s National Voucher Scheme have been ironed out, including a guarantee from the Schools Minister on a free phone line for schools to the voucher scheme provider, Edenred.
“These changes will make a huge difference to families and schools at this very difficult time and if anyone has any concerns or questions about accessing the support, I would encourage them to contact me.”
The letter from the Minister for Children and Families, Vicky Ford MP, which acknowledged Robert’s letters to the Government, stated that “the national voucher scheme will continue to be met by the Department for Education over half-term.” Furthermore, the letter confirmed that “Where the national voucher scheme is not an appropriate approach, schools are able to claim for additional costs incurred in supporting free school meal pupils”.
Mr Halfon had also raised concerns about problems schools and parents were facing in accessing the scheme. The Minister acknowledged Robert’s work on this and explained that the Department for Education has:
“-virtually eradicated queue times on both the ordering and eCode redemption sites
- where queues exist, these now typically last less than five minutes
- brought in additional technical support from a leading technology firm to ensure their tech expansion is a success
- significantly expanded the capability of the site to manage the huge levels of demand
- expanded their own contact centre and brought in a third-party contact centre to more efficiently deal with queries from schools and parents
- introduced an MP hotline to deal with any urgent queries from MPs for their constituents.”
Many parents and schools had also found difficulties in contacting Edenred, particularly with the cost of phone calls. Mr Halfon raised this directly with the Schools Minister today, who confirmed that there is a free phone number and when pressed by Mr Halfon, agreed that this will be more widely publicised.
