Friday, 15 February 2013

Horse-trading in school meals

A timely APSE briefing highlights the measures already taken by local authority caterers to ensure the food safety of school meals in light of the horsemeat scandal. It also references the fact that these measures have been put in place by local authority caterers who retain control over food procurement.

This provides parents with greater certainty than dealing with a plethora of different private sector providers of school meals. It is time for politicians to stop horse trading in scant facts and recognise that there is intrinsic social value in direct school meals provisions. A future Labour government should reverse the risk presented by schools opting out of local authority meals services under the guise of ‘choice’ and ‘flexibility’ for individual schools. The current system in England is clearly a recipe to allow teachers to cut costs, private caterers to cut corners and politicians to gamble with our children’s health. A crisis like this one should focus minds (and stomachs) on the risk of outsourced contracts:
http://www.apse.org.uk/briefings/13/13-04%20school%20meals%20and%20contaminated%20products%20containing%20horse%20meat.pdf

Cher Garr