The Free School Meals eligibility service plays a vital role in ensuring that children from lower‑income families receive the support they are entitled to. For schools, local authorities and families, the service underpins access not only to free school meals but also to related entitlements such as Pupil Premium funding and childcare support.
By making eligibility checks faster, more reliable and simpler to complete, the service makes it easier for families and schools to understand eligibility and complete checks smoothly, and supports key pillars of the government Opportunity Mission the department is leading on, including “Best Start in Life” and “Every Child Achieving and Thriving”.
With the expansion of free school meal eligibility criteria, the Department for Education (DfE) identified the need to replace its legacy system, which was increasingly unreliable, difficult to extend, and unable to support changes in government policy. Working as part of a multidisciplinary team, Made Tech supported the department in designing and delivering a modern, scalable eligibility service that is capable of handling millions of checks a month and adapting to future needs.
Challenge
The existing eligibility checking system had become a significant constraint. It was slow, experienced downtime and wouldn’t have been cost-effective to update in line with the latest policy changes. This was particularly pressing as eligibility for free school meals was expanded, increasing demand on the service and the need for a system that could operate reliably at a national scale.
Schools and Local Authorities (LAs) relied on the service to identify eligible children, but outages and manual workarounds created an additional administrative burden and, in some cases, delayed access to entitlements. The department needed a replacement that could improve resilience, support a wider range of users and provide a foundation for future eligibility checks beyond free school meals.
Approach
Made Tech joined a blended delivery team made up of DfE civil servants and specialists from other consultancies. Our contribution focused on technical architecture, helping the department design a replacement eligibility-checking engine that could be delivered securely while the legacy service remained in operation, without adding complexity for users.
We supported the design of a modular, hub‑and‑spoke architecture, with a central processing engine capable of calling multiple external services to check eligibility. This approach allowed the service to integrate securely with other government departments, including the Department for Work and Pensions and HMRC, while remaining flexible enough to accommodate future policy or service changes.
The new service was designed to support a wide range of users, including parents accessing a public portal, schools and local authorities using their own systems, and third‑party suppliers integrating through APIs. Managing these different user groups and permission models was a key consideration throughout the design.
Our technical leadership helped guide the service through discovery, alpha and beta, ensuring that architectural decisions supported resilience, performance and long‑term sustainability. We also supported the move away from legacy dependencies towards more robust, strategically aligned government platforms, reducing the risk of downtime and improving responsiveness to change.
Result
The new eligibility service is now rolling out as a modern replacement for the legacy system. It supports parent and school portals, making it easier for families to check eligibility directly through the user‑friendly platform.
By reducing friction and failure in the eligibility‑checking process, the service removes practical barriers that previously made the process harder to navigate.
The service is already operating at a significant scale, processing more than two million eligibility checks each month as the rollout continues. Its modular design makes it easier to add new eligibility types, creating a foundation for future services that can help families access support earlier and more efficiently.
Impact
By modernising the Free School Meals eligibility service, the Department for Education has strengthened the reliability and resilience of a critical national service. Schools and local authorities now benefit from a more dependable system that reduces administrative burden, minimises downtime and supports faster decision‑making. This helps ensure the process is clearer, more reliable and easier for families and schools to use.
In practical terms, this means children from underprivileged backgrounds can now more easily access nutritious meals at school – a simple yet powerful foundation for better health, concentration, and learning outcomes.
The service also enables families to engage more directly with eligibility checks through parent‑facing channels, making the process clearer and easier to complete. As rollout continues, it will continue to become easier for families to check whether they are entitled to free school meals and linked benefits such as Pupil Premium funding, used to provide additional support to disadvantaged pupils.
This stronger link between eligibility, access and ease of use directly supports DfE’s Opportunity Mission priorities, helping ensure children are supported early and consistently so they can achieve and thrive.
From a departmental perspective, the new eligibility‑checking engine provides a flexible, future‑proof platform. Its modular architecture means it can respond more quickly to policy change, integrate with additional data sources and support new eligibility criteria over time. This positions the department to extend the service beyond free school meals, using the same core technology to help families access other forms of support more efficiently.
Made Tech is proud to have supported this work as part of a multidisciplinary team, contributing technical architecture expertise that helped the department move away from legacy constraints and towards a service designed for long‑term public value. The Free School Meals eligibility service demonstrates how modern digital platforms can underpin better outcomes for children and families, while giving public sector organisations the confidence to operate at national scale.
