Thumbs up for online school meals payments

Online school meals payments by parents could become the norm following successful trials at nursery and primary schools in Surrey. The three-month trials at six schools in the county, which started in January, met with approval from both parents and schools, said Liz Hill, the project's co-ordinator.

"The parents really like the service because it's easy to use and it stopped them worrying about children losing their dinner money, or forgetting to give children their money in the morning," she added.

Parents paid for meals by logging on to SurreyCounty Council's website, typing in a code number supplied by the school and entering their credit or debit card details. Some schools achieved 50% of meals paid for online, although the average was 30%, said Hill. She added that schools which trialled the payment system liked it because it freed up time for administration staff, who didn't have to spend so long collecting and banking money.

Surrey has 338 nursery and primary schools, and the online payment system will be rolled out to them all from next month.

Hill said it probably didn't affect the number of young children eating school meals, because most parents had already taken that decision.

Source: Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, 15 - 21 April 2004