7. The impact of delegation on meals
7. The impact of delegation on meals
7.1 Whilst schools which took up the challenge of providing in-house meals would of
necessity find themselves more involved in the meals service, it was anticipated that the
many schools buying straight back into an existing meals contract would also have more
voice in how their contract was set and increased ownership of the service. With
delegation, schools would find themselves more accountable to parents for the quality
of the food provided in school. Overall, delegation would, in principle, provide the
opportunity to improve the quality of the meals served.
7.2 However it is difficult to distinguish what delegation alone has contributed to
improvement of the meals service. The delegation of school meal budgets coincided
with the re-introduction of nutritional standards, the introduction of the National
Healthy School Standard, Free Fruit Schemes and associated initiatives. With so many
factors combining together, teasing out the impact of delegation alone on any
improvements in the school meal is not straightforward.
7.3 This section examines what impact delegation has had on meals offered in schools, in
terms of availability, price, nutritional standard and importantly the extent to which
pupils choose to eat them. It looks at the extent to which parents and pupils have
become more involved in consultations about what school menus offer or whether they
continue to use only their buying power to influence provision.
Take up of meals
7.4 With many factors influencing take-up of meals, including both quality and price, it was
difficult to gain a clear picture of the impact of delegation on take up of meals, except at
individual case study level. One LEA officer believed that delegation had made data on
paid meal take up more difficult to collect as schools were no longer within the central
contract so no authority wide picture was available.
7.5 One authority had moved the central contract to a new provider at around the same
time as delegation and completely changed the service, taking out the hot meal and
replacing it with a sandwich and soup meal. At the same time, prices had risen from
£1.00 to £1.30. There had been a sharp reduction in the take up of paid meals and free
school meals.
7.6 A number of case study schools had increased their take up of paid and free meals.
One school reported that during the year in which the kitchen was closed for
refurbishment before the launch of its in-house provision, only three pupils had taken
the provided free packed lunch. With the introduction of the in-house hot meal service,
free school meal demand had risen to ten, which the school believed to be the total
number of pupils entitled. The take up of paid hot meals had almost doubled, from
around 100 meals each day with the previous hot meal service to an average of 200 per
day at the present time.
7.7 Several authorities were, with a private contractor, introducing cash systems in primary
schools to see if this might increase take-up of paid meals. One private contractor
believed that schools which insisted that children pay for meals for the whole week,
whole month or whole term were poor for business. Not all families could afford meals
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