Bid to make schools cashless

BRIDGEND County Borough Council is looking at introducing a cashless school initiative which would see parents making payments online for a range of activities and services.

Primary schools in Bridgend already use a cashless catering system, where children no longer take in dinner money, and the authority hopes to provide the facility for other areas such as trips, books and music lessons.

At a recent council meeting, head of performance and partnerships Martin Morgans said: “We currently have a situation where pretty much all primary schools have adopted cashless catering and a child can take that opportunity up but still have to bring money in for a school trip, which is ridiculous.

“When we’re talking about efficiency, it involves officers being needed to manage the money so if schools are cashless we are mitigating that need.”

The council is in discussions with several providers of cashless schools.

However the council wants the transactions to be carried out via its digital platform My Account, which was launched earlier this year for residents to manage services online such as council tax and housing benefit.

Mr Morgans said: “The suppliers don’t really want to play ball with us – they want to drive users to their portals rather than drive through our portal.

“That’s where we are at the moment, in that armwrestling competition.”