Education and Lifelong Learning

Dear Parent or Carer

Cashless Catering

Scottish Borders Council continues to be committed to improving both quality and service provided to students throughout our schools. As part of this commitment we wish to further improve the catering service facility and have taken the decision to introduce Cashless Catering into all of our secondary schools over the next 6 months.

This is a new way of paying for school meals with many advantages and benefits. In addition to making the service quicker for pupils and reducing the need to find money on a daily basis it also allows parents and carers to ensure that money intended for school meals is being used for that purpose. Crediting of accounts can be done by pupils loading cash directly through loaders situated within the school, payment by cheque to the Catering Manager and in the near future a facility to credit accounts through the internet will be made available.

A further major advantage of the system is that pupils who are entitled to free school meals will use exactly the same card which will automatically be credited on a daily basis and allow them to use the catering service in the same way as all other pupils.

In addition pupils will not have to carry or use a number of cards as we are combining cashless catering with the Young Scot card. The Dialogue Youth Team has already visited all schools to provide pupils with the opportunity to apply for this card. If your child does not currently have a Young Scot card, application forms will be available in the schools library.

The new system will go live in Hawick High School week beginning 2nd February 2009. To ensure that the implementation goes smoothly, a single cash till will be made available for the first few days, for pupils who do not have a Young Scot Card and to allow time for pupils to adjust to crediting their accounts. Pupils will be able to credit their accounts from the Monday of implementation week, but the system will not go live until the Tuesday. They should therefore bring money on the Monday to pay for their lunch as normal. Once the system has gone fully live, it is very important that your child has a Young Scot card as this will be the only way that they will be able to pay for their food purchases. Further information and detail regarding the processes for the new Cashless Catering system will be available through the school.

In order to implement the Cashless Catering project, we need to use some of the data held on pupils in the Schools' Management Information System (SEEMIS) and the data held in the National Entitlement (Young Scot) card database. This is so that the data in the 2 systems can be cross matched to ensure maximum accuracy and uploaded into the Cashless Catering System. The data will be transferred using a secure method to the Cashless Catering supplier, CRB Solutions. CRB have signed a “Confidentiality/Disclosure Agreement” with the Council. This restricts them from passing on the data to other parties. They will only be able to use it to set up and run the Cashless Catering system. Once they have done this, they will be obliged to destroy the data.

If you object to the transfer of your child's data, it will still be possible for them to participate in the project. However, their data will have to be transferred manually to the new system, locally, in the school.

We would like to obtain your agreement for your child(ren)'s data to be transferred to CRB. Please complete the form below and return it to the School, by Friday 23rd January. You can enter all your children on one form.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Yours faithfully

Glenn Rodger

Director of Education & Lifelong Learning

Scottish Borders Council - Education & Lifelong Learning - Cashless Catering

School:

Pupil Name(s): Class:

I agree to the transfer of the information held on my child(ren) in the Schools Management Information and Young Scot databases to CRB Solutions for the purposes of the implementation of Cashless Catering.

Parent/Carer Name:

Signature: Date:

Please return this form to the School by Friday 23^rd January 2009.

Council Headquarters, Newtown St Boswells, Melrose, TD6 OSA

T: 01835 824000 F: 01835 825091

www.scotborders.gov.uk