Wrexham Council expects to spend between £200,000 and £450,000 through a four year framework agreement on introducing biometric cashless dining to five high schools and 10 primary schools. This will replace card payment systems in place at these schools.
The tender, published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 8 July 2009, may also cover a further 20 primary schools which the council wants to consider cashless dining.
"The decision to use biometrics for identification purposes at schools was taken following many years of using payment cards at Wrexham schools and the various problems that arose from this," John Davies, chief learning and achievement officer for Wrexham, told GC News.
"In making this decision much research into the technological improvements made since our original systems were installed was done as well as site visits to other authorities using biometrics. The main issue with payment cards is the cost to replace lost cards and the disruption this causes at service time with pupils requesting new cards or arriving without cards and requesting meals.
"It is proven at other sites that biometric recognition increases the flow of pupils through the lunchtime service and therefore ensures less disruption to the school day and could increase the take up of school lunches. In addition to this the new systems enable healthy eating promotions to be encouraged by adopting pupil points systems earned for taking healthier options."
He added that the system will only store a numerical code derived from pupils' fingerprints, also known as a template, rather than images of fingerprints. "This process meets the guidelines of both the Information Commissioner's Office and Becta on best practice and Data Protection issues for biometric technologies in schools," Davies added.
Cashless systems are used by many schools to avoid bullying of children receiving free school meals, as they pay for their meals in the same way as other children. However, few schools nationally have introduced biometric identification systems for any purpose, and some of those have experienced opposition from parents.
