Decision details

As part of the Household Support Fund Scheme it has been decided that to reach the most vulnerable children in the Borough we will look to use the a voucher scheme that work so well for the COVID Winter Grant Scheme.

A voucher to the value of £15-£20 will be issued per week during the school breaks. The company previously used to administer the scheme is called Wonde and as it ran so smoothly previously we would like to use them again.

Wonde’s system provided a direct route to sending vouchers to parents by text message as well as email, through using our direct MIS integration. Schools were able to easily assign vouchers to parents as they were able to instantly see:

? Which students were eligible for free school meals.
? Who their parents were and their contact details.

Although the free school meal voucher system successfully worked for schools during the previous academic year, Schoolvouchers.com was launched to provide additional functionality for schools and to help parents keep track of the vouchers they receive.

Parents are able to choose from a range of supermarkets, these include:

? Asda
? Aldi
? Morrisons
? Sainsburys
? Tesco
? Iceland
? McColls
? Waitrose

The cost to the council is simply the cost of the voucher that is allocated to the individual and any vouchers not taken or expired will result in a refund direct to HBC.

Daily Webinars are available and full support to schools.

There is also an option to allocate fuel vouchers using PayPoint and in the future PayZone.

Due to the tight timescale on this a full tender is not feasible. WONDE are currently enabled on our SIMS server and will prove an easy install to the schools within the Borough.