Scottish councils are to extend their use of smartcards to allow cashless payments in schools, libraries and at leisure facilities.

The National Entitlement Card Programme (NECP), funded by the Scottish Executive, began last year when one million pensioners were given smartcards for concessionary travel.

Scotland’s 32 councils are now expanding the use of the cards with the introduction of 3,000 smartcard readers over two years, significantly adding to the 1,000 installed so far.

Councils are in various stages of implementing smartcard infrastructures, says Sid Bulloch, NECP programme manager.

‘Some councils will be getting kitted out for the first time with this new phase and others are building on the smartcard infrastructure they have, using applications such as cashless catering, registration and controlled access in schools,’ he said.

‘We are always trying to roll out new applications. For example we are considering allowing people to use smartcards to access cultural events.’

Bulloch says a national initiative will create economies of scale to make the programme sustainable.

‘A national scheme allows us to bring financial volume to bear, giving councils huge savings through central procurement, resource sharing and single-supplier specifications,’ said Bulloch.

The Scottish programme will prioritise smartcard use in schools for cashless catering, controlled access to computer rooms, libraries, vending machines and registration.

‘There are 800,000 secondary-school children in Scotland and that is where our next target lies,’ said Bulloch.

The scheme will cut costs and improve efficiencies by reducing cash handling, and the promotion of social inclusion.

Sarah Burnett, senior research analyst at Butler Group, says Scotland is ahead of the rest of the UK in the introduction of smartcards because there is no equivalent national scheme in England or Wales.

‘One of the main benefit is to be able to identify when concessionary travel is still valid and build a picture of exactly who is using services,’ said Burnett.