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7. The impact of delegation on meals

A. It takes them longer to add it all up because its 48p, 33p etc and then you’ve got to get
your money out. And they are forever giving you 2ps and 1p change. They should round the
prices.

B. Especially with younger pupils in the school, they have to ask the dinner ladies ‘How much
is this? How much is that? and that would speed everything up.

A. “C’mmon what are you going to have?”

C. And I think that’s maybe to do with ‘How much money have I got?’ and ‘What can I get
for that’ because the prices are..............

B. Strange, and I think it takes the dinner ladies, it takes them longer sometimes too.

A. And then the queue gets bigger because they are taking longer to work it out.

C. Because people are working out what it is going to be.

B. I don’t think it clear how much everything is, you’ve got to sort of rememberfrom what you
had yesterday.

A. The price list is on the wall and it’s dead small and you can’t see it.

B. You can’t queue up and glance at it.

Quality of meals

7.20 Case study schools that had used the opportunity of delegation to change their supplier
mentioned the quality of the pre-delegation meals as one of the key reasons for their
change. Several schools had been able to improve what was offered as a direct
consequence of changing supplier.

7.21 One governor had looked at the meals, previously supplied by a private contractor via
the central contract, with its main staples of chips, burgers and doughnuts, and decided
that the quality of the food did not justify the prices being charged. Despite raising
concerns about quality with the LEA, the school had not seen any improvement. Their
only option had been to close down the kitchen and begin again with new facilities, new
staff and new menus offering healthier meals at less cost.

7.22 Pupils at a rural primary school recalled the meal which was previously supplied,
compared with what was offered now.

A. It wasn’t like this. It wasn’t nearly as nice as this.

B. It was all mixed in and squashed in the corners. Where it had had to travel.

C. The old school dinners, I found that they didn’t give you a lot and the vegetables were really
watery.

B. And sometimes the things were really dried up.

C. And when you hadfish fingers and chips and baked beans and peas, there wasn’t very
much on yourplate when you had that meal.

7.23 One case study school which had remained within the central contract with a private
contractor believed that the meal post-delegation was not as good as before, despite
dedicated kitchen staff working long hours to produce the best they could.

Thefood has probably got more expensivefor slightly less. Quality-wise it’s probably slightly
poorer, for example the size of thefish portion has gone down and the mince is more
reconstituted than fresh. So portion size has gone down, cost has gone up but cook does her best
to put a service on.

Although the head teacher perceived the quality to have fallen, there had been a slight
increase in the take-up of free school meals and an increase in the number of meals
sold.

39



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