Chicken Yoghurt: Thin Gruel

Thin Gruel

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

So after all the brouhaha over school dinners:

Observer: Tony Blair - Our children deserve the best

We're going to take action as well to meet concern over school meals, something, from going round the country, I know is worrying parents. We are already cutting the salt, fat and sugar content in school meals and we'll soon announce details of the new School Food Trust, including substantial funding to enable it to assist schools nationwide. It will draw on the remarkable work of Jamie Oliver in schools, of the Soil Association in encouraging the use of organic and local produce in school meals, and on the best advice on nutrition and eliminating processed foods.

The new 'building schools for the future' programme, which, after last week's budget, will start systematically renovating primary and secondary schools nationwide, will improve kitchens and dining areas. There will be better training and qualifications to support the valuable work of catering staff. It may take a little time to change children's tastes but it will be worth the effort if we can get them enjoying healthy and good-quality food at school. We will also ask Ofsted to inspect the quality of school meals.

...and Ruth Kelly protesting that 'she had told her departmental civil servants that she wanted to "do something to raise the standards of school meals" on her first day in office.'

...we come to New Labour's "mini manifesto" - with the now teeth-grindingly familiar title of "Childen forward not back" (PDF). I downloaded it and printed it off in eager anticipation. Would it contain promises to usher in a culinary shangri-la for our children? Would my partner and I be freed from the tyranny of having to rise early to provide a nutritious packed lunch for our daughter rather than subject her to the warmed-over God-knows-what at school?

Well, I scoured the mini-manifesto so you don't have to. Here's what it had to say on the subject of school meals:

We will work to achieve a step change in the quality of school meals. We will introduce:

* a new vocational qualification for school caterers and provide more support for schools and Local Education Authorities.

* new minimum health specifications for processed foods - to reduce fat, sugar and salt content - from this September. And from September 2006, even tougher minimum standards will come into force. Monitoring will improve too; Ofsted will have to take account of school food in its inspection process from this September and we want a new School Food trust to, among other things, help empower parents to work with schools to raise standards. This will include substantial funding enabling the trust to assist schools nationwide. We will further improve kitchens, equipment and dining areas through our Building Schools for the Future programme and the additional investment in primary schools announced in the 2005 Budget.

And that's it. After all the fuss and trailing and the enlisting to Oliver's Army, the whole issue gets two vague paragraphs in the whole 12-page document.

So, when the government promises to "help empower parents to work with schools to raise standards", does that mean guidance on how to renogotiate or even terminate contracts with outside contractors and corporate behemoths like Scholarest? Notice, again, the onus on parents. School to most parents is a black box where they have no control over the guff shovelled into their children's minds or the swill that's shovelled into their stomachs. Many parents don't have the time, education, confidence or, in some cases, the interest to make such changes. Maybe this onus gives the Government a get-out clause: "Well, we offered parents the chance, but there just wasn't the demand."

Will Ofsted have the teeth to take on the big boys or will they just tinker at the edges, issuing bollockings to under-trained dinner ladies who've over-boiled the pasta?

And of course, there's no date for when we might see improvements to kitchens, equipment and dining areas. Maybe they're being delivered tomorrow with the jam.

In fairness to New Labour, it seem this mini-manifesto was at the printers when the school dinners debate blew up again over the weekend. If not, you'd expect them to put some meat in this thin stew. Hell, the last two pages of the document is peddling the - now exposed as a lie - frightener about the £35bn Tory cuts. If the document wasn't at the printers you'd think they'd have pulled that.

(Not that I'm defending the Tories in any way. They're still a bunch of liars, racists and, frankly, knobheads, and will spend less on public services than New Labour in the long term.)

The mini manifesto might contain all kinds of other fabulous stuff - who knows, maybe our kids are each being promised a goose that lays golden eggs - but in leaping upon the school dinners bandwagon in the way they did, New Labour obscured everything else.

UPDATE: The Independent - Kelly pledges extra cash to improve school meals

But Ms Kelly ruled out extra money being transferred directly to schools for the food itself, saying it would conflict with the Government's policy that schools should decide their own budgets. She emphasised that parents, rather than the Government, should take primary responsibility for their children's diet.

At a Labour press conference, she admitted it was "difficult" to produce a high quality school meal for 37p. She stressed that many authorities spent more than that, citing the 45p spent in primary schools and 60p in secondary schools by south Gloucestershire.

Did you hear that? Primary schools in south Gloucestershire spend a whole eight pence more per primary school child. Imagine what you could buy for that. The finest sweetmeats and condiments from the Orient, no doubt.

UPDATE: Knives out for Scolarest

Hampstead and Highgate Express: ‘Ninja mum’ Natasha leading fight for healthy school meals

The mother of two, of Queen's Crescent, is spearheading a campaign by parents at St Paul's CE Primary, Elsworthy Road, Primrose Hill, to get rid of Scolarest, the private firm in charge of the borough's school meals.

BBC News: School caterer demands more cash

A catering firm has threatened not to bid for school dinner contracts in England unless funding increases.

Scolarest, which supplies 1,400 state schools, wants 55p a day per child for food, compared with the average of 45p nationally for primaries.

The Times: Scotland digs deep to give its children the best

A recent survey of Scolarest meals, served by 2,000 schools in England, revealed that each contained just 29 per cent of the recommended level of vitamin C for a healthy immune system and 77 per cent of the fibre for good digestive health.

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