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5. Support for schools at delegation

For one year there was no support whatsoever. For the first year 2001-2002 the first year the
school went off on its own. We’re not experts, we don ^,tprttend to be experts.. did approach
the LEA to say ‘Is there anything you can help us out with? You are the experts because you
used to run this’. When it came to looking at the contract, the legalpeople helped by looking
at that. That’s a statutory right we buy into. But when it comes to things like recipe books and
what kind offoods you can use, we didn’t know about all these do’s and don’ts. Meat should
be a certain size, vegetables should be a certain size and the caterer could have just done their
own merry thing. They could have got away with things. [The LEA] helped with no charge,
just using oldfriends. Without that, I think we would have been in a bother. Because I had to
provide the specification for the caterer.

5.7 Not all schools were prepared for the task and some found themselves faced with
unforeseen problems. Several LEAs cited schools that had selected suppliers who had
failed to deliver. On the whole, whilst these experiences had been regrettable, they had
not been too serious and the LEAs had been able to assist schools, often by offering
provision from the central contract in the short term. However one example provided a
cautionary tale.

One school wentfor what looked like a good contract, promising redevelopment of the cafeteria.
Three months in, the company said they couldn’t supply as the contract was written, because
they were not making enough money andpulled out the contract. Which wouldn’t have been a
desperate thing. Three months on the contractfailed and they come back to the authority. But
the contract was written in such a way that the school still had to pay the money, it was a nasty
contract and the smallprint was very negativefor the school. They lost about £15,000 which
if they had used the legal service at the LEA (which would have cost £500) that would not
have happened.

5.8 Another LEA described a similar contract problem, related to contractors’ anticipation
of profit in individual schools. A school was in dispute with its contractor over low
take-up of meals and the issue of profits and loss with related penalty charging. The
LEA finance officer explained that the contractor had taken on the service on the basis
that it would be profitable, but when the reverse happened, the contractor had expected
the school to share in any loss. The school has since returned to the DSO on a yearly
contractual basis.

5.9 One LEA, which had delegated budgets to all secondary and primary schools, felt that it
had not been sufficiently prepared itself to provide assistance to the one secondary
school which had left the central contract. Fortunately, a district audit had helped the
LEA identify some of the areas where the school needed support.

As it happened we were having a district audit survey ofprocurement within the authority and
the school that wasn’t buying in was part of that survey. So we got some recommendations on
how we should be looking to support anybody who wants to look to alternative providers and
we have been working on developing that. I think it was perhaps a challenge for thefirst school
going out because you don’t know what you don’t know until you’re out there and trying to
work your way through. So I think we all learnt a lot through that exercise, both the school
and us.

5.10 Through its experience with this vanguard school, the LEA had identified the need for a
designated officer within the authority to provide co-ordinated support for schools and
to ensure that any difficulties were identified early on so as to limit any further
problems.

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