FOI request (FOIR-355856741)

Acceptance of cash payments

Requested Thu 12 August 2021
Responded Wed 25 August 2021

Has the council stopped accepting cash payments in any of the following areas of council business?

1. Housing

2. Welfare

3. Tax payments

4. Childcare

5. Adult education and skills training

6. Educational support (such as learning support or council-provided tuition)

7. Leisure/sport

8. Parking

9. Health, social care, dentistry or mental health services (please specify)

10. Payments to schools (including school meals)

The council is completely 'cashless' (cash is not used for any payments across council business)

If you answered yes to any question from 1 through 10, does the council have records of the number of payments made by cash prior to the cessation of accepting cash? If so, please provide these. If possible, please provide these figures for the three years prior to the cessation, in yearly intervals.

If you answered yes to question 7, does the council have records of the number of people who have been refused access to leisure or sport facilities due to being unable to make non-cash payments? If so, please provide these figures for each year since the council stopped accepting cash.

If you answered yes to question 10 (that the council no longer accepts cash for school meals), does the council have records of the number of students buying school meals in 12 months before and after the switch to cashless was made? If so, please provide these, broken down by month.

If you answered no to question 7, does your council have any plans to move toward exclusively taking non-cash payments for council services?

Please provide a breakdown of the payment methods used for the services listed in question 1.

Response

Whilst taking cash is not our preferred payment option there has not been any formal agreement to stop taking cash payments and it would be difficult to provide a breakdown, however the majority of payments are now received online via a bacs or card payment.

Schools, adult education, childcare, health and social care are the responsibility of East Sussex County Council, please visit their website for further information:

https://www.eastsussex.gov.uk