England
Vice chair of LACA Anita Brown told conference that from an English point of view, the difference within the four nations on price per meal was a real concern. “Surely the children deserve the same funding,” she said.
She pointed out that grant funding was not being shared fairly by schools with caterers. Also a recent pay award for local government employees had further squeezed local council budgets. There were also recruitment challenges; and rising costs for food and cleaning materials.
“In my authority, as part of our response, we’ve made menu adjustments. But how far do we go when head teacher expectations are so high?”
She added that there was to be a review of School Food Standards in April 2024, but there were only two caterers on the review body.
On the plus side, she pointed out: “We have a skilled workforce, we manage and understand customer expectations, we have well-planned service delivery, we collaborate between regions, we have a trusted reputation, we review customer needs regularly, and we have a great set of suppliers.”
Northern Ireland
Colm Bradley of Education Authority Catering in Northern Ireland said the service had a fuller remit as it was also responsible curriculum and maintenance.
It had recently undertaken a revamp of the service with new branding and menus to raise take-up. The work was based on the results of online surveys involving 2,470 parents, 1,200 pupils, 230 school principals, and 270 catering staff.
As a result it had launched a primary brand Eat Well (Live Well, Learn Well) that involved the Lunch Bunch, five characters promoting local food, vegetarian food, new foods and international food. A post-primary brand Let’s Eat had also been created.
“We have created eight signature dishes for primaries and ten flavours of the world for secondaries to be promoted over social media over the summer ready for the new menus to start in September.”
Wales
Judith Gregory, LACA vice chair elect, provided an update on Wales, explaining that it was part-way through rolling out free meals for all primary pupils.
Free meals will be starting for all Year 3 and 4 children in September, with Years 5 and 6 due to join them in April 2024.
“It’s a two-year programme that started in September 2022 with a focus on locally-sourced food. There has been some capital funding to increase kitchen capacity and the unit meal rate is £2.90, though this is being reviewed to help meet local sourcing ambitions. The challenges are staffing, equipment, infrastructure, and supporting special diets.”
Benefit-based payments for free school meals during holidays is being stopped, it was brought in during the pandemic.
Judith discussed the Review of the Healthy Eating in Schools Regulations getting under way and Welsh LGA drafting guidance on managing special diets.
Scotland
Chris Ross, chair of ASSIST FM in Scotland, said the country’s school food standards were very stringent, ‘which is good but can impact on uptake, particularly in secondaries’.
It, too, was rolling out free school meals for all primary age children and had got as far as P5 (nine-year-olds) by January 2022 but had since stalled at P6-P7 while capital and revenue funding issues ‘were addressed’.
Scotland also had launched its Good Food Nation programme with the aim to make the meals the best they can be and use local produce.
“There’s no point in increasing uptake, cramming in more children and giving them a worse experience. That’s part of the reason for the delays to P6-P7.”
The school meals service had an ageing workforce, so they were looking at new ways to recruit and retain colleagues.
“Many older workers getting ready to retire and now looking to make our workplace more attractive and flexible to attract new workers.”