North Yorkshire School Meals "Stand and Deliver" Charge (Scarborough and Whitby Liberal Democrats)

Scarborough and Whitby Liberal Democrats <info@scarboroughandwhitbylibdems.org.uk>

North Yorkshire School Meals "Stand and Deliver" Charge

March 27, 2009 2:50 PM

Liberal Democrats at North Yorkshire have accused the Tory led Council of using its monopoly position as school meals provider to primary schools to demand unacceptable contractual terms.

Cllr Bill Hoult, Leader of the Liberal Democrats at County Hall says:

"Once again we see the Tory led Council giving a "stand and deliver" ultimatum that would make Dick Turpin proud. It needs to be recognised that many small schools across the County have nowhere else to go for school dinner provision and may have signed the contract without fully realising the penalty clauses written into the contract."

The proposal by the North Yorkshire County Council is to renew the contract (service level agreement) to provide school meals which are currently on a six month rolling contract, with a five year contract with penalties for schools ending the contract early.

The penalty clauses are considered to be unacceptably harsh bearing in mind the monopoly position of the authority over school meals. For example a school with 100 pupils, 50% of whom take free school meals, would have to pay over £15,000 to terminate the contract after one year.

Schools will also have to specify the number of meals that it expects to be sold over each year, with a levy of 40p for every meal not taken up. The school would have no control over the price of meals (rises of above inflation are the norm, last years was more than 10%) or quality of the meal, all of the risk of falling take-up because of these factors would have to be met from school budgets.

Another cause of contention is the seemingly arbitrary decision to introduce the new contract from the 1 April this year, even though the terms of the existing contract run until July 2009. This tight timescale makes it difficult for schools to arrange alternative meal provision for their pupils.

Cllr Bill Hoult adds:

"Another factor that has not been thought through is what happens in those schools that have a year on year change in the number of pupils on free school meals. A reduction in those numbers could cost the school dearly. The whole issue needs to be reviewed."