More than one million children in England are eligible to receive a free meal each school day. Local authorities are responsible for the delivery of the meals and the application process is usually managed by the authority. Atkins was commissioned to deliver an independent evaluation of the technical feasibility, cost and benefits of various options for delivering an online free school meals service. We were then invited to take forward the recommendations.

We led the delivery of technology solutions, business process change, communications and stakeholder engagement and implemented a service management framework covering local authorities, suppliers and four government departments. We worked closely with our partners to ensure the application process would be quick and easy for parents and delivered significant cost savings. The project has won five awards for excellence in public sector IT.

• Business process improvement
• ICT consultancy

Link to this project: