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ITEM CA11
CABINET
– 7 MARCH 2006
SCHOOL CATERING
AND CLEANING SERVICES
Report by
the Director for Children, Young People & Families
Introduction
- Following last
year’s Best Value Review of County Facilities Management (CFM), this
report sets out plans to promote healthy eating for children and young
people in Oxfordshire through a viable and effective school meals service.
The plans have been developed in the light of a survey of schools’ needs
and preferences and the Cabinet is invited to endorse them as a positive
way forward.
Background
- In 2005 the national
School Meals Review Panel was commissioned by the Department for Education
and Skills (DfES) to produce a consultative report considering the actions
that were required in order to improve the quality of food provision
in schools. In brief, the Panel’s recommendations are that all local
authorities should plan
- To meet the nine
food-based and fourteen nutrient-based new nutritional standards by
September 2006.
- To transform school
meals and to use the new national grant to put them on a sustainable
footing.
- To train the catering
staff to a new mandatory standard.
- To reintroduce
universal hot meals, where this does not exist, by September 2008.
- Transitional funding
from the DfES has been made available to support these recommendations
in the form of two new national grants. "Grant 5A" is directed to schools
and is not ring fenced, i.e. it can be spent on anything, and equates
to about £1500 per school per annum dependent on the size of the school.
- "Grant 5B" (amounting
to £316k in 2005/06 and £525k in each of the two following years) is
allocated direct to local authorities. This is with the requirement
that authorities use the grant in order to develop a sustainable school
meals service in their areas. Guidance from the DfES suggests that the
grant can be used to fund any or all of the following measures: increased
ingredient cost, staff training, dining room and kitchen upgrades and
provision of equipment.
- In 2005/06 this
grant is being used to raise the food content in school meals to ensure
that nutritional standards are met. It is proposed that this approach
should continue in future years. The Service’s five-year Business Plan
(Annex 1) (download as .doc
file) outlines how grant and price increases will need to be
brought together to meet the nutritional standards and also ensure that,
as far as possible, the position is sustainable once the grant is withdrawn
in April 2008. It is intended that by improving the food content of
the meals more paid meals will be served and also that more pupils entitled
to free meals will want to take them, accounting for a 5% increase in
take up each year of the plan.
- A questionnaire
survey of schools on the future development of the service took place
in Autumn 2005. A full report of the schools’ responses is available
in the Members’ Resource Centre. Currently (2005/06) 210 schools (191
nursery and primary, 9 secondary and 10 special, i.e. 70% of all schools
in Oxfordshire) are contracted with CFM to provide a full school meals
service using their delegated budgets. Two further secondary schools
(i.e. 0.6%) are receiving a catering support and advisory service from
CFM.
- The five-year
business plan was discussed with the Oxfordshire Schools Forum at its
meeting on 22 February. The Forum’s advice to the Cabinet is set out
in paragraph 15 below.
Service
Options for Schools
- In the light of
the survey responses, a number of service options have been developed.
CFM is planning to offer all of these options to schools from April
2006 onwards.
- A. Providing
a centrally managed school meals service to primary, nursery and special
schools only: This would build on the work already begun to improve
the quality of the school meals provision. A primarily homemade menu
complying with the revised national nutritional standards was launched
in September 2005 and food spend per meal has been increased from 37
to 51 pence. In addition, local food producers and suppliers have been
engaged where appropriate. To increase the uptake of meals, resources
will be targeted at marketing the service and introducing other incentives,
along with the extension of local food producers and suppliers. The
costs for this have been included in the financial plan set out in Annex
1 (download as .doc file)
- B. Providing
a full catering support and advisory service to all schools: This
new service option consisting of technical and operational support,
will be offered to schools that wish to manage their services directly
but which also require specialist advice and support. A number of secondary
schools have already engaged CFM for this service and from April 2006
many more schools will be encouraged to adopt this approach. CFM is
in the process of withdrawing from providing a fully managed catering
service to secondary schools and this is being achieved in close discussion
with the schools concerned. The aim is to hand over all direct responsibilities
to the schools concerned in most cases by April 2006. The new advice
and support service is therefore targeted particularly at the secondary
sector. However, it will also be offered to opted out primary schools.
It is further proposed to explore with the secondary schools that are
taking responsibility for their own catering arrangements for the first
time in April 2006, the extent to which the Grant 5B can be used to
defray the costs of providing the option B service in 2006-07 and 2007-08
to those 13 schools which are affected by CFM's recent withdrawal from
a secondary managed service.
- C. Providing
a basic audit and monitoring service: This will be a non-subscription
service provided to all schools that do not engage CFM for provision
of school meals (service option A) or the support and advisory service
(service option B). The primary purpose of this service will be to audit
the quality of provision across the county against a range of benchmarks
including food safety regulations and nutritional guidelines. In schools
where the current meals provision is identified as not meeting the recommended
standards, CFM will be in a position to support those schools in developing
their provision. Any additional services provided by CFM following an
audit visit will be subject to a charge. Offering this basic service
option to all schools in Oxfordshire regardless of whether they subscribe
to CFM or not, will help to minimise potential risks to the Council
and provide essential information on the scope of food services provided.
Financial
and Staff Implications
- Service Option
A would continue to be provided on a buy back basis. In order to deliver
a break even position growth targets for meal sales must be achieved
year on year. The budgetary assumptions include a growth rate of between
5% and 6% year on year commencing from April 2006. This equates on average
to 2 to 3 additional meals per school, per day. In addition the selling
price of the school meal is projected to increase over the term of the
five-year plan. Assuming that growth targets are achieved, these increases
are projected to return a trading surplus over the five-year term. The
increase in selling price will be partly used to fund increased food
costs and the costs of staff training and investment in equipment and
facilities.
- Service Option
B is new and it is proposed that it should be resourced from within
the existing CFM structure. The costs associated with this service would
be recoverable from schools. 49 of the 133 schools which responded to
last Autumn’s catering survey indicated that they would consider using
this service.
- The transitional
grant 5B will partly fund service option C. As this is purely a light-touch
monitoring function, one additional post at Technical Support Worker
grade will be required to provide this service. This post has been accounted
for in the business plan. Weaknesses identified as a result of these
site audits may be an opportunity for CFM to generate additional revenues
by working with the sites to overcome the problems. However, as the
level of problems cannot be quantified no revenues arising from such
follow-up activity have been built into the plan at this stage.
- The Oxfordshire
Schools Forum has expressed concern at the County Council’s proposals
for the use of Grant 5B as set out above. This is because it appears
that secondary schools in particular will be excluded from receiving
any benefit from the grant. The Forum advises the Council to consider
delegating an appropriate proportion of the £516k grant to secondary
schools in 2006/07 and 2007/08.
Marketing
Strategy
- A marketing strategy
focusing on promoting the wider benefits provided by the school meals
service is being developed. The budgetary assumptions set out in the
annex include funding to procure professional marketing advice and a
web-based marketing package.
- Nationally the
initial experience of introducing healthy menus in primary schools has
been of lower take up of school meals by pupils. However, this has not
been the case in Oxfordshire with meal uptake remaining constant. In
addition the price increase from £1.55 to £1.70 introduced in September
2005 has not led to any reduction in meal numbers.
- Promotion of school
meals and the encouragement of parents to choose school meals will be
the main feature of this strategy. This will also be linked into the
work on the Healthy Schools programme and the work of the Oxfordshire’s
Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) in tackling childhood obesity. In this connection
schools will also have opportunities to purchase advice and support
from CFM with the funding they have been allocated through Grant 5A
(see paragraph 3 above).
- CFM has included
improved food content in its primary/special school meals since September
2005. Meal numbers have remained buoyant and there are strong indications
from the survey that, following the changes to the meals, headteachers
are more willing to support school meals. This, plus the added focus
in the Healthy Schools programme, the importance of health in the Children
Act agenda and the inclusion of questions about school meals in the
new Ofsted framework all suggest that there are clear opportunities
for increasing meal take-up over the coming period.
- The Marketing
Strategy will be implemented in full from September 2006 and will focus
on a number of areas, including:
- Creation of
a new name and brand for the service.
- Effective communication
of the benefits of all service offers to stakeholders.
- Maintaining
the lifetime value of the customer.
- Provision of
information to parents prior to school entry and throughout schooling.
- Promotion of
service developments as part of the continuous improvement programme.
- Provide information
to service users reassuring them of service offer and standards.
- Provide evidence
to service users that services are compliant with government standards.
- Introduce strategies
to improve interaction between customer and service provider.
- Introduction
of sales promotions to encourage pupils to commit to purchasing school
meals for extended periods.
- In addition it
is planned to:
- Use existing
publications and networks to raise awareness, (e.g. through the "Oxfordshire
Magazine", "The Post", the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire & Milton
Keynes and Oxfordshire Food Group (BBOFG) Food Guide and the Oxfordshire
Food for Health Alliance and Healthy Schools newsletters).
- Provide Healthy
School Training – the enhanced Healthy Schools status has a compulsory
core of Healthy Eating. To achieve this schools have to have a whole
school food policy.
- Make healthy
eating a part of the school curriculum through revision of the Personal,
Social and Health Education (PSHE) programme in schools and the recent
launch of the Food in Schools Toolkit in Oxfordshire.
- Provide advice
to schools about how they could use their delegated grant to promote
the take-up of school meals.
Procurement
of Locally Sourced Food
- Existing contacts
with the Oxfordshire food group will be further developed to identify
and source locally produced healthy food. CFM will actively work with
a wider range of schools in developing these initiatives further and
build on existing local food projects in place at schools such as South
Moreton and Brize Norton Primary Schools. Currently, CFM is using 8
local suppliers who are providing fresh meat, vegetables, juices and
breads. Locally sourced foods are being used in 32 schools across the
county.
Performance
Management
- Challenging but
achievable performance management targets will be agreed with the catering
management team in order to deliver the required income growth targets.
Monitoring of meal uptake and costs will be undertaken at regular intervals.
Monthly progress reports will be provided to Councillors as part of
the monthly financial reporting procedure.
- Performance objectives
will be agreed as a team process, implemented, measured and evaluated
on a monthly basis to ensure continuous improvement. Catering is a quality
assured business and already has robust operating procedures in place,
which are regularly audited. A regular meeting structure throughout
all parts of the business will ensure that objectives are clearly communicated
and cascaded down through the organisation to front-line service delivery
points.
- It is essential
that the school meals service is delivered in compliance with the relevant
legislation. Performance monitoring will form an integral part of the
management activities and will provide evidence to confirm that services
are compliant. Budgets will be set in line with directorate recommendations
with the assistance of directorate Finance Officers. All operations
must be funded from the allocated budget and additional income generated.
- In connection
with the above, it is proposed that the Cabinet Member for Change Management
should have an overview of the management and delivery structures for
the service.
Investment
- To continue replacement
of heavy kitchen equipment in line with the current rate of demand an
allocation of £100,000 per annum has been made. In addition a further
allocation in 2006/07 has been made to fund potential replacement of
ageing regeneration ovens that will be coming to the end of their working
life. However, from April 2006 those schools which benefit from additional
capital investment will be expected to continue contracting with the
County Council’s catering service for a specified period after the completion
of any improvement works or else be liable to pay the County Council
back the cost of the works.
Community
Interest Companies
- In response to
suggestions from UNISON, considerable research has been done by the
Council’s Chief Solicitor into the possibility of creating a Community
Interest Company which could take over and run the school meals service.
His comments are set out in Annex 2 (download
as .doc file).
Conclusions
- The evidence collected
as a result of the recent consultation exercise with schools demonstrates
that future school needs can be met by firstly retaining the existing
managed service and by introducing a range of support and advisory services.
There is also evidence to suggest that some schools would like the option
of being able to procure ad hoc services such as emergency staffing
cover. For CFM to successfully offer managed services it must position
its offer in the middle market sector in order that it is affordable
to schools and parents and equally importantly so that the quality of
provision meets customer expectations. Effective communication of this
strategy to all stakeholders and delivery of the required quality is
essential to ensure success.
- The focus of this
report has been on the school meals service. However, CFM also provides
cleaning services in schools and some County Council buildings. These
are projected to return a surplus in 2005/06. However this part of service
is very dependent on the overall pattern of CFM’s business. With this
in mind, it is proposed that the current arrangements for providing
building cleaning services are maintained in their current form until
the customer base from April 2006 onwards is identified more clearly.
RECOMMENDATION
- The Cabinet
is RECOMMENDED to:
- support
the proposals to develop the school catering services along
the lines set out in the report and the five-year business plan;
- instruct
officers to implement rigorous monitoring on a regular basis
of financial and service performance and of potential performance
risk factors, starting in April 2006.
KEITH
BARTLEY
Director for
Children, Young People & Families
Background Papers: Report of Questionnaire Survey of Oxfordshire Schools
(copy in the members’ resource centre)
Contact
Officers: Rick Harmes, Head of Strategy & Performance. Tel (01865)
810626
February
2006
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