TEACHERS will get to have their say on the future of school meals.

A consultation is set to begin over whether to extend a four-year contract with provider Chartwells for a further two years.

The Chartwells contract began in August 2014 and is set to run until next year, but there is the potential to run it until 2020.

The roll-out ran into teething problems when some school meals failed to arrive, meaning teachers had to send out for sandwiches or even takeaways to ensure pupils were fed.

The issues were sorted a few days into term, but the county council held a ‘call to account’ meeting to examine what caused the problems.

A report has now been prepared for the county council’s audit and governance committee as an early briefing for the school meals contract arrangements.

The committee will meet on Friday (20) at County Hall in Dorchester.

The report notes that: “There were well-documented issues during the early implementation stages of the current contract, resulting in a call to account in October 2014. Chartwells took on board the concerns raised by the councils and schools and put in place an action plan – which included developing a strong management team to build a well-trained workforce and to have all the necessary infrastructure in place. The supplier is now delivering high performance across all aspects of the contract as reflected in regular feedback taken from schools.”

While the initial contract was with 105 schools across Dorset, the report states that this has now increased to 114, including 77 in the Dorset County Council area, 21 in Bournemouth and 16 in Poole. Take-up of universal free school meals has also increased, from 65 per cent to 74 per cent.

The average number of school meals served by Chartwells each day is 11,750.

The consultation will take place between January and April this year to establish whether or not schools wish to continue the contract beyond 2018. The contract can only be extended if enough schools want to carry on with Chartwells. The supplier says the volume of meals must not fall below 4,000 if it is to be viable, but below 5,000 meals the price per meal reaches £2.30, which the report notes is likely to be a ‘tipping point’ for schools.

The annual value of the contract is £3.5m, but the costs fall to the schools’ budgets, as each school buys into the contract.
The agreement with Chartwells began when the government announced universal free school meals would be introduced for all key stage one pupils, increasing school meals from 5,000 to 11,000 per day.

Prior to this, the contract was with Midlands-based Cygnet Catering. The Dorset Echo revealed in November 2013 how parts of the meals travelled more than 200 miles, from a factory in Nottingham to the plates of pupils in more than 100 schools in Dorset.