College Closure Update 14.04.20 Free School Meals

College Closure Update 14.04.20 Free School Meals

We received this from the Department for Education today (14th April).

We will see if the promise of the delivery of e-codes by 8 pm happens.

If this has not happened by tomorrow morning, we will again pursue

the Government scheme and prepare to issue vouchers from

Voucher Express. We are determined that no family receiving FSM will

be disadvantaged, and will receive payments for this week and in

future.

If you do receive FSM, and have not yet redeemed the Voucher Express

vouchers, we will contact you to find out how we can better support

you, and that you are aware of the change to the Government scheme.

During the course of the last week, orders placed within the Edenred system were higher than anticipated. This had an impact on the performance and experience.

Our teams have been working day and night through the Easter weekend to process orders and develop the system capability and performance for the weeks ahead. Improvements are being applied every day.

Paid orders – All existing orders with status ‘paid’ continued to be processed over the course of the Bank Holiday weekend. These will all have been completed, with emails sent direct to families or as, stock eCodes issued to schools by 8pm this evening.

The Department for Education has agreed to allow schools to place an order for a family to cover a period of up to four weeks in one order (£60 instead of £15 on a four weekly cycle or £30 for a two weekly cycle), thereby reducing the administration burden on schools and further reducing the volume of visitors in the ordering platform at any one time. This will make a significant difference to your experience.

We thank you for your continued patience. We appreciate it has been challenging to have a new process implemented very quickly. We’d also like to thank you in advance for your support in adhering to the guidance and the new instructions outlined in this communication. We are confident working in this way will enable support to get to families in a faster and more timely manner.

Kind regards,

Edenred UK on behalf of The Department for Education