Following a tender for an integrated cashless payment and meal management solution, London Borough of Barking and Dagenham awarded the contract to Nationwide Retail Systems (NRS).  NRS will provide the Council with a central borough wide system for cashless catering as part of the Council’s Youth Access Project which is due to launch in January 2010.

Starting in 2008 the Barking and Dagenham Strategic Partnership began a three year programme of change for children to improve the life expectancy, and quality of life, of children and young people living in the borough.

As part of the programme, the borough’s Youth Access Card will integrate to create a new healthy life aspiration across schools catering, leisure and libraries, providing incentives to improve meal uptake and particularly healthy eating choices, and assist in improving pupil attendance and pupil behaviour. Primary and secondary schools across the London Borough will benefit from an NRS ePOS cashless catering solution, integrated with ParentPay Data Capture™, so parents can pay and view their children’s meal choices online.

Kevin Taggart, Project Manager Youth Access, said: “The NRS and Parent Pay solution is a winning proposal in which we can all have confidence.

“We look forward to working with our partners to deliver on our significant programme of change within Barking and Dagenham.”

Alan Fletcher, Managing Director of NRS, said: “We were delighted and are proud to be associated with such a cutting edge and far reaching programme which would benefit the young people of Barking and Dagenham both now and in the future. NRS will continue to develop their solution alongside Barking and Dagenham to ensure the Youth Access Project is a great success.”