Edinburgh schools: Parents at Davidson's Mains Primary want to solve the mystery of the missing meals

Parents at an Edinburgh primary school are trying to solve the mystery of their children’s missing meals.

School dinners booked using an online cashless payment system keep disappearing, according to the parents at Davidson’s Mains primary. And for some youngsters having their choice of food wiped from the system means they end up not having any lunch.

Parents at Davidson's Mains Primary School are frustrated that their children's meals keep disappearing from the computer system. Picture@ Google. | Google

Cheryl Watson, whose daughter is at the school, said the ParentPay system allowed pupils to choose their meals and parents to pay for them in advance. The system is also used to pay other costs like school trips.

“When it works it’s great - it give three options of a meal per day and it’s easy enough to pay things,” she said. “I usually book meals six to eight weeks in advance and note choices in my diary so my daughter can see quickly what she is having that day. 

“But too often meals which have been booked disappear from the system. It has frustrated me every year, but this last year to 18 months has been especially horrendous. On the year group’s WhatsApp chat it’s almost every week that someone’s saying there’s a problem with the accounts.”

One week recently, a note from the school’s catering supervisor asked parents to check regularly that their orders were up to date because normal numbers were down by about 90.

Ms Watson said: “When 90 meals are missing in one day and they’re being told the following week is the same, it’s clear it’s not the parents, it’s ParentPay.

“It seems to be if the system is doing an update it’s taking some meals off - but it doesn’t seem to follow any particular pattern about whose meals it takes off - one week it could be my daughter’s friends but my daughter’s fine and then the next week hers could have disappeared but her friends are fine. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it.

“The schools still supplies them with food, but if they’re not on the system they just get what they have extra of. It’s fine for my daughter because she’s a really good eater, but for quite a number of kids having their option wiped could be the difference between them eating lunch or not eating lunch. What about low income parents who rely on this being their child’s main meal?”

The council said the issues with some lost bookings stemmed back to small menu changes due to nutritional or allergen changes on products. 

Education convener Joan Griffiths said: “The ParentPay system is used by the majority of councils across the UK for the bookings of school lunches and here in Edinburgh it manages meals for 26,000 pupils every day.

“Following a recent issue highlighted with the system we have been in discussions with ParentPay and they have come up with a solution to prevent it happening again. We fully appreciate the impact glitches like this have on the lunch service and hope any affected parents will be reassured by the measures that have been put in place.”