Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to Edenred's briefing of 18 May 2020, Delivering the free school meal voucher scheme: MP progress report, on what date he was made aware of the finding in that briefing that, Poor data which has been logged into the system by schools [has] result[ed] in c. 40,000 (3.5 per cent) hard email bounces; and what steps his Department is taking to ensure that that issue is resolved.

Voucher codes are being processed through the national scheme and many thousands of families are redeeming them. Our national voucher scheme supplier, Edenred, has reported that over £110 million worth of voucher codes has been redeemed into supermarket eGift cards by schools and families through the scheme as of the 27 May. We have been working closely with Edenred to improve the scheme, and the programme of developments has significantly increased the speed of access to the platforms, processing times for orders and distribution of valuable support to families.

As part of this ongoing focus, over the weekend of 2 and 3 May, Edenred identified that a number of eCode emails had ‘hard bounced’, meaning that the eCode had not been delivered as schools had entered an incorrect email address for the parent or carer. On 7 May, Edenred contacted all schools affected to alert them and to provide guidance on how they could issue new eCodes to families. Edenred continue to engage with the relevant schools via telephone and to raise the subject in emails to schools.

These are rapidly developing circumstances; we continue to keep the situation under review and will keep Parliament updated accordingly.