He said: “LACA wrote to the Department for Education (DfE) outlining our concerns about the vouchers. They have responded to our 11 questions and thanked us for our continued dialogue.”
In particular, he asked that if vouchers were offered by schools in preference to a meals service which could still be offered by the provider, would the caterer still be funded.
The DfE said the Government was meeting the costs of the voucher scheme through additional funding, and so would continue to provide schools with their expected funding, including funding to cover free school meals and universal infant free school meals, throughout the period of closure..
Forster described the clarification as ‘very welcome’ for LACA members.
Another point tackled in the questions concerned whether contractors which furloughed staff could claim PPN 02/20 payments for them as well.
The DfE responded: “Suppliers cannot furlough and receive PPN 02/20 payments for the same staff. They should initially seek payments under PPN 02/20 if applicable, and where this does not cover costs for all staff, they can seek to furlough.
“Any supplier found to have acted fraudulently by claiming under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (or other COVID-19 support schemes), for workers that are being paid under a public sector contract, may be excluded from future public contracts on grave professional misconduct grounds under regulation 57(8)(c) of the PCRs.”