Short(ish) thread on @educationgovuk & their FSM voucher provider of choice, @Edenreduk

It’s been clear from the day Boris Johnson announced schools would close, that the plight of FSM pupils, whilst the first thought of school leaders, has been secondary to Ministers & the DfE

Schools received no guidance on how to support these vulnerable children & so took in on themselves to come up with solutions that worked for their communities

Some worked with their caterers & organised food parcels (though not all worked out well) others used existing players

like Wonde whilst some schools bit the bullet & bought parents supermarket vouchers

All reasonable & effective ways for schools to support their FSM pupils

Belatedly DfE picked up on the issue and for some reason, known only to themselves, decided to come up with a new solution

Under pressure to act, rather than offering reassurance they would support whatever option schools had in place, DfE decided to work with a single supplier to provide vouchers

This wouldn’t be so bad if it was the system of last resort but they massively incentivised it’s use

Reluctant to guarantee the unknown costs of supporting FSM pupils, DfE set a cap on their financial support, made it clear that schools should be funding meals from their reserves wherever possible & promised a vague claim back system with details to follow

Making the announcement to the press rather than to schools, headlines centred on FSM pupils receiving “a £15 voucher”

Not only did this shift parental expectations, but the financials didn’t match. Schools now had to find £15 a week whilst most FSM funding is stuck at £11.50

After all their hard work setting up their own schemes, schools now had no guarantee they would receive the money back and were faced with funding a 30% uplift to provide the £15 vouchers parents were demanding

They majority did the obvious and went with EdenRed

Then Michael Gove sidled into the daily briefing, taking everyone by surprise he took the plaudits by announcing that FSM pupils would receive these vouchers throughout the Easter holidays

Sadly he didn’t make clear that it would be schools who had to pay

The unintended consequence of all these announcements was a scheme of last resort rapidly became the scheme of choice

DfEs underlying desire for control, their preference for micromanaging their was through a crisis led directly to EdenRed being overwhelmed

Now there’s more than enough blame to go around, after all EdenRed chose to run the scheme. As an aside there was no tendering process, so we don’t know what requirements were specified. But it’s clear they were not expecting the number of hits they received

EdenRed were not set up for the sudden interest, I’m not convinced they knew in advance they’d have to include Easter holidays

Their system crashed & no one could get through

Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong,

This isn’t down to bad luck, it’s down to bad planning

DfE were now in a fix

Their sole supplier clearly wasn’t coping
The system was collapsing under the strain

The obvious move would be to cut demand, buy EdenRed some time to build extra capacity

All @GavinWilliamson had to say was “We will give all schools £15pw to support FSM”

That one statement would have provided heads with the reassurance they needed. Schools could return to the original systems they had in place without taking a hit on their cash and it would instantly reduce pressure on EdenRed giving them time to get their ducks in a row

But @GavinWilliamson chose a different route

With no sitting parliament to ask questions or hold ministers to account, DfE dug in & dug in hard

Ignoring the fact that the most vunerable children in our society were being left without food, @educationgovuk chose to sit it out

The presumption being that an under pressure EdenRed will eventually build a system that can cope & that by staying silent on it, DfE can allow EdenRed to take the blame

Of course this ignores that in the meantime children are going hungry, but as long as it’s not headline news!

Whilst I feel for every Headteacher/SBM whose spent hours trying to order the vouchers, my greatest fear is that the worst is yet to come

Building an IT system that sends out vouchers is one thing, having the back up & help desks to answer the inevitable queries is a bigger job

DfE incompetence has been the main cause of this FSM fiasco

Their refusal to support schools, to trust heads, led to some appalling decisions. They’ve hidden from any responsibility & ignored every opportunity to make it right for hungry pupils

It’s not getting any better

@GavinWilliamson needs to step in now because even if EdenReds IT starts working, the back room support isn’t in place

@halfon4harlowMP & @CommonsEd need to call @PermSecDfE and @educationgovuk in to answer questions as a matter of urgency

There is still time to get this right