Case Study: Department for Education achieves a scalable, reliable Free School Meals eligibility service with Made Tech

Department for Education processes over 2 million eligibility checks a month with Made Tech

The Department for Education needed to replace its slow and unreliable legacy system for checking free school meal eligibility, which was no longer cost-effective to update. Made Tech was brought in to help design a modern, scalable solution to support the service's expansion and ensure children from lower-income families could access their entitlements.

Working as part of a blended team, Made Tech designed a secure, modular, hub-and-spoke architecture for the new eligibility-checking engine. The resulting service is user-friendly and now processes over two million checks monthly, reducing administrative burden and downtime. This has made it easier for families to access support and provides the Department for Education with a flexible platform for future policy changes.

Department for Education