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An investigation into the free school voucher fiasco, which left many families without food during the lockdown, found that the government signed contracts worth up to £ 425 million with a company for which there was “limited evidence” of its ability to delivery.
The complicated plan was put in place in just 18 days and awarded to the French-owned company Edenred, despite the government’s own assessment that the UK arm of the company did not have the financial capacity that would normally be required for the scale of the contract, according to a report from the National Audit Office (NAO).
The public expenditure regulator said Edenred was appointed to execute the scheme using an existing government framework contract, as it was already a supplier to various government departments, which meant there was no need for a lengthy bidding process.
However, within weeks, problems began to crop up, with schools across England complaining of problems registering for the weekly coupons of £ 15 per child. School staff worked late into the night trying to log into Edenred’s website and parents waited up to five days to receive their coupons.
At one point in April, Edenred’s helpline was receiving nearly 4,000 calls and nearly 9,000 emails a day from frustrated parents and school staff. At the height of the crisis, ministers were forced to intervene directly and Department of Education officials made daily calls with Edenred to monitor progress.
One of the key issues identified in the NAO report was Edenred’s IT capacity, which was inadequate to meet the challenge of providing vouchers to up to 1.4 million children who were eligible for free school meals.
The report says performance improved after DfE’s intervention, with order processing times falling from an average of five days in April to just hours in July, and wait times to access the website dropping from 42 minutes to virtually no wait during the same period.
According to the report, Edenred issued 10.1 million vouchers in total at a final cost to the DfE of 384 million pounds, significantly less than the original cost estimated at the start of the plan. The report says the DfE “does not know if Edenred made a profit” from the scheme, but while the government paid them the face value of the supermarket vouchers, Edenred was able to generate income by buying vouchers at a discount to their face value.
Meg Hillier, chair of the Commons public accounts committee, said: “DfE chose a tailored standard system to save time. But when it was launched, families generally had to wait five days to get the coupons they needed to buy food.
“Edenred’s systems gave way under pressure, and schools and families found it too difficult to get in touch when things went wrong. DfE and Edenred finally managed to turn things around, but many parents had to wait too long to get the support they needed. “
Gareth Davies, the director of the NAO, said: “The problems at the beginning of the plan led to a frustrating experience for many schools and families, but DfE and Edenred worked hard to overcome these problems. Performance steadily improved as the plan progressed. “
Minister for Children and Families Vicky Ford said: “The NAO has recognized the swift action we took to enable eligible children to access this important provision while schools were partially closed, worth £ 380 million in coupon codes redeemed on supermarket gift cards when plan ended. “
