At the height of the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in April, the government’s chosen contractor for FSM vouchers, Edenred, was overwhelmed by calls to its helpline and emails from schools and parents struggling to get vouchers.
When the scheme launched, it was taking Edenred almost five days to process orders for the vouchers. Calls to its helpline from schools and parents peaked at almost 4,000 a week in mid-April. At the end of April there was a peak of almost 9,000 emails a week.
A report from the National Audit Office (NAO) into the programme’s delivery, published this week, says that the situation did improve between late April and July, but school leaders this week reminded the DfE of just how much stress the problems caused at the time.
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