APPENDIX 3
Memorandum from Buckinghamshire County
Council
Following our conversation last week, I did
promise to put in writing to you a fundamental issue as regards
the Buckinghamshire Education Service and its schools and the
possible re-introduction of a duty on local education authorities
to provide a paid meal service where parents request it.
The issue with regard to Buckinghamshire, which
I should be grateful if you would bring to the attention of the
appropriate Sub-Committee looking at this, is that the Authority
ceased to provide a paid meals service in 1986. It does still
provide a cold, free meals service for entitled pupils which is
generally provided in the primary sector, by a private contractor,
operating out of a single site, with delivery to schools where
such pupils are receiving their education.
As regards the secondary sector, most schools
have a private hot meal contractor operating on their premises
and can therefore make appropriate arrangements for the provision
of both a paid meal and a free meal service.
The particular point we wish to bring before
the Sub-Committee is that in the primary sector, because of the
changes made in Buckinghamshire over 13 years ago, primary schools
generally no longer have kitchens—and indeed in any new
buildings we have not incorporated, generally, a kitchen. It would
be extremely difficult in the short and medium term, therefore,
for either the LEA or any governing body as appropriate, to be
able to provide a hot meals service of a particular nutritional
standard given the physical constraints upon the provision of
any such service.
I am aware that there are one or two other authorities
in the same position as ourselves and would therefore ask the
Sub-Committee to take these particular facts into account when
considering any future regulations, etc, on the provision of a
paid meals service. It would take a county like Buckinghamshire
a considerable number of years to re-create that service—and
of course at a considerable capital cost.
No doubt you will bring this to the attention
of the Sub-Committee and point out to it the particular difficulties
which a county such as Buckinghamshire would have in these circumstances.
A Mander,
Head of Resources, Education Department,
Buckinghamshire County Council
July 1999
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