Essex County Council is to stop arranging a school meals service from April, when the current contracts at 356 primary schools expire.
The decision has been criticised by Vic Laws, director of AVL Consultancy, who believes small, rural schools may suffer as a result. "It's very strange that with the current concerns over obesity and diabetes we have a county council absolving itself of any responsibility for providing hot meals. Schools need assistance. There are small rural schools which are going to be abandoned and just have sandwiches."
But a council spokesman said it has pledged £900,000 for schools to set up their own services. He said that the key reasons for ending the service were the decline in the number of large schools using the council's collective purchasing; increasing staff costs for contractors; and the difficulty contractors faced in preserving profit margins while meeting pressure from the council, schools and parents to improve food quality.
Scolarest and Initial Catering Services are the current contractors, but new tenders received at the end of 2003 from Scolarest and Sodexho were too high, said the spokesman. Accepting would have led to a rise in meal cost from £1.40 to £2 or schools having to divert resources from classrooms to catering. "We felt we had no alternative but to say, 'Do it yourself'," he said.
Initial chose not to rebid for its contract but said it was in talks with schools interested in continuing with its service.
The move means that, from April, no schools in Essex will have their meals service arranged by the council. In 1993 all 80 secondary schools and 150 primary schools chose to organise their own catering.