School Meals

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Hallmark July 1986. School Meals. Report by County Councillor Denis Hart

Many subjects in the County Council become highly politicised, usually for electoral reasons even when the connection is difficult to discern, and in my view often makes for bad decisions because councillors faced with that situation tend to take refuge within a party perimeter rather than vote with those they represent in mind. Thus, on school meals we were all deluged with often highly political letters, most of which came from Milton Keynes and Nupe, advising us to consult with our own parents and voters and vote to keep school meals. This was a curious contradiction in terms because few councillors at any level can be returned if they do not keep in touch with the views of those they represent and doing this made it clear to me that what parents and rate-payers wanted was an end to the system as it is now. So, let us look deeper into the question and discover why.

School meals cost every ratepayer about 8.5p in the £, on top of the 75p which most parents paid for each meal. Of this total only about 30p was actually spent on food, the rest going on supporting services such as administration. Some 1700 staff, i.e. the "dinner ladies" are employed on this work, so much of the cost goes on their pay, yet only one child in four on average throughout the county actually eats the meals, so three-quarters of the prospective customers vote with their feet and eat elsewhere, usually from parents I have asked because they do not approve of the meals. supplied, so “dinner ladies" and their supporters are not keeping in touch with their customers, which any shop-keeper will tell you is a guarantee for bankruptcy. In the area I represent the average is about one child in ten eating the meals, parents telling me that they preferred to provide packed lunches for their own children to control what they ate, and complained to me that school meals staff simply would not listen to their complaints about the food.

Where the ratepayer had no child at any State school, which is 70%, the views were even more hostile to school meals, and since they are the majority, every councillor must listen whatever other people say. There are, perhaps, surprising impacts outside schools, where large herds of pigs were fed on the waste swill, to the huge discontent of ratepayers, especially those who lived near the swill processing factories because it has to be boiled. I doubt that most ratepayers will regret the loss. Finally, do parents who give their children the daily 75p actually check on what they spend it on, because it is clear that many children did not spend it on their school meal in school.