Decision details

Decision to be made under urgency process due to need to issue vouchers before the summer holidays. It was not expected that the council would receive the additional funding from the DWP and therefore must now action quickly.

       i.         That the purchase of supermarket vouchers for all Free School Meal (FSM) eligible children attending Bracknell Forest schools, including equivalent under-fives living in the borough is approved. At the value of £15 per child, per week, for six weeks of the summer holidays.

     ii.         That the purchase of supermarket vouchers (using £208,200 of DWP funding and around £7,800 internal funding) through the existing provider, Blackhawk is approved.

    iii.         That the decision is approval under the urgency process.

The council was notified of the extension of this scheme on 21 June 2021 by the DWP. Therefore, the vouchers must be purchased urgently in order to be received by families before the summer holidays. These recommendations allow the council to extend our previous offer of school holiday vouchers to the same cohort of children, using the same process as before, working closely with schools and early years settings. It is expected that these vouchers will support feeding around 2,400 children.

The funding provided does not have to be used for school holiday vouchers, although there are specific conditions that the distribution of funding must meet. Therefore, if the recommendations were refused, an alternative could be developed. However, in considering all the options for previous tranches of this funding, it was agreed that supermarket vouchers over the school holiday would be the best use. Discussions with other councils also show that the large majority are choosing to use this additional funding for summer holiday vouchers.

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