FSM - Eligibility Checking
Results for parents
When a parent performs a check, the decision is instantly available on screen.
- If a parent is eligible for free school meals, a notification email is sent to their school to alert them of this.
- A parent may receive a response that is not a straightforward yes or no. They may get a response telling them to try again in a number of weeks or to provide some additional documents manually.
- A parent may also get a response that says: "Sorry, but the entered values could not be matched to any living person listed in UK Government records. Please double-check your details then try again." - In such instances, the application will not be recorded and will not show up in a school's list.
Please be aware that in the event a parent is entitled to FSM claims are not processed automatically. A school must still file a claim with the local authority in order to claim any funds that may be due.
Results for schools
Parents' eligibility check results are not sent by email in order to safeguard everyone's personal data. It is up to a school administrator to log into the site and view the eligibility check results. An administrator can also run an eligibility check for a parent, provided they have all the necessary information to do so.
Please note: In schools where not all the setup criteria has been met and an administrator is not set up, if a parent shows as being eligible for FSM, an email alert will be sent to the Head, explaining what needs to be done in order for this information to be accessible.
Viewing the results via the admin page
Once you have logged in via the "Administrator" button and selected your school, you should be able to access details of eligibility checks related to your school. Please note that in order to see data, you must have the correct permissions.
The Page View
The page consists of a set of panels, each of which can be closed, if you have no wish to see the information inside all the time.
Inside the Information panel, you will see a summary of incomplete data that has been received from your school.
The number shown indicated contacts that do not have mobile numbers when exported from your school's MIS. Any contact that does not have a mobile number will be unable to complete the entire linking process.
Should you wish to fill in the missing information, click the Show details button to obtain a list, then enter their mobile number into the MIS. Any new information will be processed in the data export that should be coming from your school every evening.
Viewing eligibility results
The outcome of all checks made online by parents are available to the school in the Reports section of the page. There are two tabs in which the details are shown.
The first tab titled "Full details of FSM eligibility checks" lists all pupils and parents where the parent has successfully linked their own account with the account of the child(ren) attending your school. The second tab, "FSM eligibility checks for children not matched to school data" also shows valid results from eligibility checks conducted by parents.
The main difference is that it was not possible to match the pupils shown in the second tab with data received from the school. If you recognise these pupils as belonging to the school, applications can still be processed as normal. This does not affect the eligibility check providing valid data to the school.
If you'd like for a match to be attempted, click the Submit button to attempt a re-match to happen.
This sends a request to the FSM Support Team to see if a match can be made. In some instances, this is simple but at other times, the data submitted by the parent and the data provided by the school are completely dissimilar.
In such cases, a match cannot be confirmed and certain pupils will remain in the "unmatched" report.
Sorting the eligibility results
You may find a very long list of parents who have done online eligibility check. Since the ones of interest are those that are eligible, you can easily sort the list using the filters available in the column headings. The column headings should look as shown below to allow sorting:
If you do not see the sorting options, enable them by clicking on the filter icon.
Reducing the results list
If you have a long list of eligibility check results that are not relevant to you, you can hide the ones you no longer wish to display.
When viewing the eligibility results column (titled "Eligible?") you will generally see Yes or No. In some instances, where the check was done before 1 April 2018, you may see the response "No Trace - Check data". Such a person would have originally been found not eligible as a result of some incorrect information being entered. You will not see such a status for anyone whose first check is done after 1 April 2018.
If any entries have been hidden, you can display them again by clicking the amber "Show hidden applications" button.
Rows that were previously hidden will appear highlighted on a red background. You can then use the tickboxes on the left to permanently un-hide some hidden rows or to add more rows to those being hidden. Use the green button once the relevant selections have been made.
To hide the information click on the amber button again which should now read "Hide hidden applications"