School meals shake-up plans could lead to the loss of 125 kitchen jobs
UP to 125 jobs could be lost under plans to overhaul the city's school catering service.
Derby City Council is looking at two options to safeguard the service's future and cut costs by £800,000.
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Beryl Keegan
One option is for an external company to make frozen meals, which will be sent by a council distribution hub to schools for them to be reheated.
But this would mean the loss of 125 school kitchen staff who would no longer be needed to cook fresh meals on site.
The second option is for a private provider to run the service, transferring all the staff to it.
The council's cabinet will decide next Tuesday which option to approve. But as a short-term cost-saving measure, catering staff are expected to see their wages docked by 30 minutes' pay a day through a change to meal options from September.
Unison officials claim they have had no prior consultation and the options will lead to "reduced choice" for children. And head teachers have already expressed concerns that reheating frozen meals would lead to a loss in food quality.
Council leader Harvey Jennings said: "We have decided to review the current system as we don't believe that it provides the best value for money. The pre-prepared meals are fully compliant with nutritional standards and offer a wider choice than already available. Parents will be informed of the new meal system once a final decision has been made."
Derby's school meals service has a turnover of about £5.5 million each year and has had a deficit of between £80,000 and £370,000 for the past five years.
The projected loss for 2010-11 is £275,000, with each £2 meal costing £3 to produce.
Since consultation started at the end of last year, eight schools have opted out of city's meals service and are now providing their own meals and paying catering staff directly.
Lakeside Community School opted out of the city service at Easter. Head teacher Simon Emsley said most heads wanted to have fresh food available for children and not reheated meals.
He said: "We have sourced our own food to get the best quality and prices and we are able to cook it here fresh on the premises."
The council cabinet is also being asked to approve reducing the school meals option from three to two each day from September 1 to make short-term savings.
This would mean offering either meat or fish and a vegetarian option instead of all three at present. This would lead to an estimated £140,000 saving per year.
Nick Alverson, Unison assistant Derby branch secretary, said: "We have only just seen the options. We are very disappointed and we will be consulting with members to come up with alternative suggestions. It is too early to say if action will be taken."
12 Comments
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by kitchen worker, derby
Thursday, July 22 2010, 6:10PM
“This so called super kitchen has been in the pipeline for quite some time long before conserativties took over.There are too many management to pay for and silly food on the menus costing quite abit of money to provide which nobody eats rersulting in an awful lot of waste i think they forget they are providing meals for children some as young as 5.If the county council can manage to provide healthy meals within a budget then it just goes to show it is the citycouncil management team who are going wrong somewhere.Wonder if thier jobs are safe?”
by kitchen staff, derby
Wednesday, July 21 2010, 10:01PM
“i would advise you to send your kids pack up, all there doing is feeding the kids rubbish, cheap and nasty....cheap for them, nasty for the kids, i would rather get a new job than insult the children by plonking horrible food on there plate and just because there little kids shouldn't mean we take the mickey out of them”
by colinbel, Belper
Tuesday, July 20 2010, 5:45PM
“Children need a good quality meal served by staff who have stable, well paid employment and enjoy providing a good service which they deserve. This can only be achieved by paying them decent wages and keeping their jobs in the public sector without having rubbish conditions of work and employing agency staff. Ready meals also have the problem of more waste going into landfill which we need to avoid.”
by Fiona, derbyshire
Tuesday, July 20 2010, 4:42PM
“i'm glad my kids go to school out of the city. i get a lovely meal planner each term telling me what choices they'll have day by day, and i know they're eating good stuff.
this costs the same as the city schools, so why can derbyshire county council provide that standard of service and not derby city council??”
by Al, Derby
Tuesday, July 20 2010, 1:32PM
“There was something very interesting to be seen in Newcastle Upon Tyne back in the early 80's.
My husband went to one school, where the school meals were really sub standard and greasy rubbish, plus living in an area where unfortunately most parents also cooked only food that could be served with tomato sauce.
A few miles down the road was a school of same aged kids, who had a really decent school meal system, freshly cooked, healthy food made on the premises and not all deep fried rubbish.
The kids from the second school were almost all at least one foot taller, and more athletic than those at the first school.
Thats a fact that is! Contribute it to what you will, but its pretty convincing to me.”
by Rams Fan, Oakwood
Tuesday, July 20 2010, 1:13PM
“I don't agree at all with reducing the options to two, one of which would be vegetarian, as once again the majority are restricted to cater to (none intended) the minority.. if people have special dietary requirements then it should not fall on the majority to allow for that.
Incidentally, I think the greater causes of childhood obesity are the prevalence of computer consoles and the selling off of school playing fields rather than the provision of school meals which account for only 24% of their meals per week.”
by mark, derby
Tuesday, July 20 2010, 12:02PM
“This has been on the cards well befor the torys took over it was in the telegraph earlier in the year before the election.
http://www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/news/change-school-meals/article-1775976-detail/article.html
that was from january”
by Sally-Ann, Derbyshire - Somewhere haha!
Tuesday, July 20 2010, 11:46AM
“Again since the tory's took over virtually everything, the country is going to pot!!! Now they're taking away school kitchens and sticking all the staff in a central one. Then sending out frozen, premaid food instead of fresh meals out to schools to save money. I would pay extra for my child to have a proper, healthy school meal, made fresh on the premises with local, fresh ingredients. I'm guessing the tory's won't be doing that with the kitchen staff in private schools that their members and children go to will they? of course not. For some children, a hot school meal is the only proper hot meal they will get every day. Now they're going to have crap meals again, like they did years ago. Again, the tory's look after their own, and to hell with the people who aren't rich!!!!”
by Mark, Derby
Tuesday, July 20 2010, 11:44AM
“How can a private company make it pay when the council cant? how can they make a meal cost £2 when the council supposedly cant? is this down to the free meals being included into that as they will still cost as a private company wont absorb that cost.
frozen meals cant be as good for the kids than properly cooked fresh food looks like the council are putting money infront of childrens health. what would jamie oliver say?”
by Angela, Derby
Tuesday, July 20 2010, 10:41AM
“If the council goes ahead with this they will be losing a lot of children who eat school lunches.
Not many parents will want their children eating frozen food for lunch.
My own child will no longer have school meals as we can't eat processed food, it makes us ill, to the point where we need hospital treatment. This includes tinned and frozen due to the preservatives in them.
At home everything we eat is cooked from scratch using only fresh food.
The council, as usual, is very short sighted.”