Since April 2000 budgets for school meals have been delegated from Local Education Authorities (LEAs) to all secondary schools and many primary schools. In addition, primary schools who have not had these budgets delegated can request that this be done.

With delegation schools become responsible for both deciding how to provide the school meal service, and for the quality of the meals provided.

Options for providing the school meals service
Generally speaking there are three options available to schools once they have had their meals budget delegated:

• Employ your own staff and provide the service in-house.
  
• Use the provider offered by the Council. The Council will often manage the contract on your behalf. Either agree in total the specification recommended by the LEA or ask for some variations to it to meet any particular requirements your school may have.
  
• Prepare and tender your own contract (you could decide to employ a specialist to do this for you).

Ideally, schools need to start making a decision about their preferred option at least twelve months before the current arrangements end.

Quality standards
The Government has National Nutritional Standards which MUST be adhered to for all pupils requesting a meal, not just free meals. (Refer to Information Bank 4 for more details)
Schools with delegated budgets are responsible for ensuring these standards are adhered to. You cannot transfer responsibility to the service provider.
In addition, schools that request a delegated budget must also meet the LEA's quality standards for the school meals service (which may be superior to the statutory requirements).

The best way for schools to ensure the catering contractor adheres to these standards is to incorporate them into the service specification. To avoid disputes over interpretation, it is essential that the service specification is unambiguous. The most frequent areas of concern are likely to be:

• Variety of meals
  
• Quality of meals, for example temperature
  
• Portion sizes
  
• Running out of choices, e.g. fresh fruit

The key mechanisms schools should use for controlling standards are:

• Regular meetings with the service provider
  
• Agreeing menus well in advance
  
• Regular recorded monitoring of the service
  
• Using the contract conditions to enforce the contract if necessary
  
• Varying the contract if requirements change.
  

In addition, examples of good practice that schools should consider adopting are:

• Regular service inspections. Schools should require the contractor to supply regular inspection reports and also initiate occasional independent inspections.
  
• Asking the local Environmental Health Office to inspect the service and provide a report of their findings.
  
• Providing training for school meal supervisors on healthy eating, how to encourage pupils to make healthy choices, and how to monitor the quality of food being provided.
  
• Adopting a school food policy (for ideas see the Grab 5! Model School Food Policy.

More Information The Feed me Better Campaign, led by Jamie Oliver, provides healthy, unprocessed recipes for schools meals, lesson plans and information on how to improve the school meal service. Packs for schools are available for £14.50. Visit www.feedmebetter.com or call 08712225678. Food for Life, is a programme for schools, led by the Soil Association, that aims to increase the amount of local, organic and unprocessed food in school meals. Information and curriculum materials are available from www.foodforlifeuk.org. Good Food on the Public Plate - A manual for sustainability in public sector food and catering. This Sustain publication sets out how current laws support sustainability in public sector catering, outlines the many benefits that could be gained from changing to 'greener' public sector contracts, and provides guidance and case studies. Available from Sustain on 020 7837 1228 or www.sustainweb.org Primary Choice is a specialist company that can help schools set up their own school meals service and discuss how they might buy good, locally produced food. For more information contact Jeanette Orrey, 07973345475, info@primarychoice.co.uk or visit www.primarychoice.co.uk Somerset Food Links have investigated the feasibility of putting more locally produced food onto the school menu and produced a report with their findings. For more information contact 01458 259485, www.foodlinks.org.uk South Gloucestershire Council Kay Knight, Catering and Contracts Manager at South Gloucestershire Catering has revolutionised the school meals service in the region and increased the take-up rate from 23% to 49%. Her service now supplies over 4 million meals to children in 115 schools with locally produced fresh beef and pork, potatoes, vegetables, apples, ice-cream and eggs. Sustainability lies at the heart of Kay's work with training for the catering staff being provided and effects on the local economy being considered. More information on Kay's work can be found in the Sustain publication detailed above.