Each person named is inspiring others to step outside the day-to-day routine of their role and consider what extra they can strive for.
Public Sector Catering had planned to get them together in December for a round-table debate to look at some of the key issues facing the industry, such as rising food prices, staffing shortages, and supply chain shortages.
Planned rail strikes have forced us to re-arrange this and our leading influencers are now due to convene at the House of Commons on February 23rd 2023 instead.
Chris Ross
Chris took over on November 1st from Jayne Jones as chair of ASSIST FM, the organisation that represents public sector FM services providers in Scotland.
In his day job he is senior operations manager for City of Edinburgh Council, which delivers 22,000 meals a day across 96 educational establishments. He was the lead officer for the £20m Universal Free School Meals programme, achieving a 40% increase in capacity over two years.
Matt White
The new chair of the Public Sector Catering Alliance (PSCA) Matt White, the immediate past chair of The University Caterers Organisation (TUCO), received an MBE in the 2022 Queens New Year’s Honours List for his work as TUCO chair and the University of Reading, where he is currently director of campus commerce.
Since becoming PSCA chair he has introduced a new ‘constitution’ to regularise the way it is led and works and overseen a pan public sector highlighting the huge challenges caterers currently face in managing food and energy price rises, supply disruptions and staff shortages.
Stephen Briggs
He has been head of catering for the Education Authority (Northern Ireland) since April 2020, Stephen is a facilities management professional with over 25 years of operational experience across a wide range of sites and service areas.
The catering service delivers to 1,150 schools across Northern Ireland, serving 150,000 meals a day to nursery, primary, post-primary and special schools.
Alison Smith
Alison Smith is a prescribing support consultant dietitian at Herts Valleys Clinical Commissioning Group, she is also chair of the Advisory Committee on Borderline Substances, the first dietitian to hold the position, and has been a committee member of Older People Specialist Group and Optimising Nutrition Prescribing Specialist Group for 12 years, four as chair.
She says: “Older adults do not have any greater requirement for fat and sugar than the rest of the adult population, even when malnourished. They do, however, have a greater need for protein and some vitamins and minerals.”