School dinners owing- parents bankrupt

Jennie_2

None of us knows what goes on behind closed doors. People's state of mind, what they are having to deal with.

Bankruptcy is not just about the inability to pay and I would imagine they have been trying to deal with the door knockers and phone call makers who are probably making their life hell. If you haven't been pressurising them you've probably been put at the bottom of the pile. In other words your kindness has bitten you on the bum.

As for the packed lunches? Who knows... one poster said that may be the only decent meal the little one gets - quite possible. Sounds like mum is burying her head..

Is there a compromise here? I know some of you might shriek at me that this is not fair but there is a difference between those who won't pay and those who can't.

The_doomed

5 years since i left school, but how on earth can you accrue £100 of debt at school dinners? do kids no longer just hand over their £2 or whatever?

Savvy_Sue

The_doomed wrote: »

5 years since i left school, but how on earth can you accrue £100 of debt at school dinners? do kids no longer just hand over their £2 or whatever?

At secondary school I suspect it would be very difficult, but at primary school there are staff supervising meals to the extent that they'll try to check that every child has something to eat. I always used to pay a week ahead for dinners rather than every day. But for those with packed lunches, if you forget your lunch you'll often get given a school dinner with a request to tell mum to send the money in next day. If this happens too often and mum ignores or doesn't get the messages, and staff can't contact mum easily, but the child still has neither a packed lunch nor dinner money, then over a term you could very easily get £100 behind on your dinners.

In fact I had a very similar problem when I ran an afterschool Club: tried to get payment in advance but one mother just didn't pay and continued to book her child in. You can't turn a primary school aged child into the streets, but equally we couldn't subsidise this child. A Strongly Worded Letter was sent ... which fortunately had the desired effect.

sarahlouise210

At the very least this mother will be receiving income support, child tax credit and child benefit - there is no excuse for the mother not to provide a packed lunch and make sure they have a nutricious meal in the evening ..thousands do. There are many reasons why this could be happening..the mother could just be seeing how far she can get away with it, she may not be thinking straight and cannot take in the debt..who knows. The person I feel for in this situation is the child - it would not matter how much in debt I was, my children would go to school with a decent packed lunch - I dont see a way to resolve this..if the mother does not supply a lunch then the school will surely have to give them something to eat ? Its tricky..what would they do if he turns up with a packet of crisps ??? Someone going through bancruptcy may still be working so not necessarily qualify for free dinners - whatever the household budget, feeding your children must surely come first ?

Sarahsaver

Exactly. How much is it to get a loaf of economy bread and something to go in it, and a bit of fruit.
Nobody is THAT hard up in this country that they cant do that.

norfolkgirlandproudofit

You know her address and her name, so phone your local Official Receiver (his / her number will be in your phone book under Official Receiver). You don't need to ask for anyone in particular - just ask the person who answers the phone if there is a bankruptcy order against ""whatever her name is"". You can give the address too if it's a common name. If there is a bankruptcy order, then ask to speak to the person dealing with the case and tell him / her that you are a creditor and ask hin / her to send you the paperwork so that your school can make a claim. If the house is being sold so soon then perhaps there is already a Trustee in office - if so the Official Receiver's staff will be able to tell you who it is and give you a contact phone number. In that case phone the Trustee, again ask to speak to whoever is handling the case and again say you are a creditor and ask for the paperwork to make a claim. If the house is being sold, you need to register your debt with the OR / Trustee as soon as possible so that your school gets a chance of a payout. Presumably the child now has a new address???????????
I am surprised that the parent didn't give you the details of the Official Receiver and / or the Trustee, as if she is bankrupt then it is ONLY the Trustee who can pay her creditors out of her assets, whereas her information to you suggests that she is going to pay herself from the sale proceeds???????? The story does not sound watertight so I think you should check out the details. The Official Receiver may also be interested to know of the parent's continuing to incur credit after the date of the bankruptcy order.
If you feel brave enough, ask her outright who her Trustee is - otherwise just phone the Official Receiver
Don't let this continue -as another post said, other potentially hard-up parents are funding this non-payment

Contains_Mild_Peril

spankymonkey wrote: »

maybe taking the parent to one side and explaining that the school cannot provide a cooked meal for their child until the debt is cleared. and if they need help in funding for the free meals option maybe you could give them the paperwork needed to apply. just be apologetic but fair.

I think that's too harsh: they're not likely to be able to pay the debt right now, so I would think a reasonable arrangement would be for the child to be able to take school dinners which are payed for in advance while arrangements are sorted out for the arrears. It's a delicate situation because obviously you don't want to embarrass the child or see them miss their lunch, but I think a letter explaining that no further credit can be given would be appropriate, and a claim form for free school meals in case they're entitled could be enclosed.

squashy

It is a lot of debt to have built up I agree. The situation is this- the school admin was newly recruited in September last year, the head employed two of us who unfortunatley had no school office experience. The other unfortunate thing was that the head did not know any of the workings of the school office as the other older ladies used to do it all "their way". There was no handover between us, so basically I have been learning the job by trial and error. There have been a hundred and one things to get to grips with and while I have tried with the dinner money, there are some i have just not been able to reel in. A lot of the problem too is that the records are really out of date and a lot of the kids have old phone numbers/addresses etc!

I have already brought it to the head's attention and sent letters bearing his signature. We have agreed that we do need to formulate a policy whereby if they fall behind by x amount the child will have to go onto packed lunches.

Thanks for the advce re Official Reciever too.

Savvy_Sue

Good luck Squashy! It's always a nightmare taking over a job like that with no handover, at least if you see how it was always done you can think about WHY it's done that way and then decide to do it better!