Universal Infant Free School Meals Newsletter – June 2014
Somerset’s Strategy for Infant Free School Meals has been
approved.
Somerset’s strategy sets out to:
 provides all Local Authority Nurseries, Infants, Primaries and First
Schools with funding to provide a serving kitchen,
 ensure we have capacity through our current suppliers and
strategic partners to provide sufficient meals, and build a
strategically placed central production kitchen supported by
finishing kitchens around the County to ensure fresh salads and
vegetables for our pupils
 Develops links with the healthy food agenda.
Funding
The council has therefore agreed the following funding for the strategy:
• All schools of under 150 pupils that have received school meals
transition funding from the DfE can use this to fund their serving
kitchens. The value of £662,000 will go directly to these schools
from the DFE. For details follow this link to: Universal Infant Free
School Meals (UIFSM) Conditions of Grant and calculator:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/universal-infant-freeschool-meals-conditions-of-grant
Utilise the government grant of £1.07m provided by the DFE to support
the implementation of infant free school meals:
• for serving kitchens in schools with more than 150 pupils
• to ensure all schools have the appropriate equipment to help serve
the food safely. The figures originally provided with the draft
strategy are now available.
• fund one production kitchen and strategically placed finishing
kitchens and gives support to all schools who do not have access
to a hot meal service.
• support Local Authority school production kitchens with a
contribution of £5,000 to increase their capacity.
Total Cost £1,675,000
As the funding is not sufficient we are supplementing the strategy with
additional funds:
• All schools with more than 150 pupils are asked to contribute 25% of
the cost of improving their kitchen facilities to ensure the funds available
meet all the needs identified across the county. Value £250,000.
• The Authority bridges the funding gap and allocates, up to maximum of
£500,000 from the 2014/15 capital programme to fund support the
strategy.
Progress so far:
Ensuring all schools can have a serving Kitchen:
We have obtained quotes from a number of companies for kitchen
equipment and the most competitive was Alsop and Pitts, we have sent
details to schools and invited them to organise a survey of their
premises.
Often asked questions
Why do we have to use Alsop and Pitts? –
You don’t have to, however we have got the quotes to save schools the
work of getting 3 quotes, ensure the supplier gave Somerset Schools
priority and we have tried to achieve economies of scale by linking all
school’s needs.
If you wish to use another supplier you will need to demonstrate (as you
would normally) that you have had three quotes. The quotes we have
are based on economies of scale and therefore if all schools choose to
go with different suppliers and get their 3 quotes the prices for the few
remaining schools with Alsop and Pitts would have to change.
What happens if there is no room for a serving Kitchen – this is an issue
in a very few schools, but for those schools it is very challenging. Here
we are looking at other neighbouring venues such at Village or sports
halls.
Will the equipment arrive in time? Yes. If surveys are undertaken quickly
and the equipment ordered, Alsop and Pitts can usually undertake a
survey within a week of being contacted.
Edwards and Ward/BAM – Quotes?
Schools do not have to worry about 3 quotes for the supply of school
meals if they use one of the two County partners – Edwards and Ward
or BAM. Both companies through different procurement processes have
won competitively the right to provide meals to Somerset Schools.
NB. We encourage schools to stay with their current providers.
Do we have to use Edwards and Ward or BAM? No.
Who your school uses is up to your governors. As is normally the case
your school would expect to have three quotes.
Will the new central production kitchens be ready in time? We are
working on it. As you can imagine it is a very tight timescale but at the
moment we are expecting to.
How do we know that BAM provide good meals? These have been tried
and tested. A small group from Contract Support and SAPHTO went
to Cambridgeshire to see the model working there and were pleased
with what they saw. All schools that are at risk have been invited to a
presentation from BAM to understand their service.
We are organising a visit to Filton Primary School to see a BAM school
kitchen on 10/6/14 leaving Taunton at 10.00am. Please contact Linda or
Jon at llee@somerset.gov.uk or gdgarside@somerset.gov.uk if you or a
governor would like to join the visit.
Publicity and Communication with Parents and Carers
Our Colleagues in Public Health are running a publicity campaign to
encourage Somerset families to take up their free school meals.
Leaflets will be despatched to schools during the week beginning 16th
June. These should be given to the parents of children that are eligible
for a universal free meal. The leaflet will include information about the
health and financial benefits of taking up the free meal offer. It will also
include a registration form that will be used to register their child for a
meal and also to ensure we record eligibility for pupil premium. Copies of
the leaflet and registration form will be made available on
www.somersethealthinschools.co.uk/schoolmeals from mid-June.
Public Health will be undertaking a publicity campaign during the
summer to raise awareness for the autumn term. This will include the
‘My Best School Dinner’ competition and articles in Your Somerset and
local press/media. Any schools wishing to showcase the progress they
have made with the Universal Infant Free School Meals Initiative should
contact Fiona Moir fxmoir@somerset.gov.uk
Support for School Governors
The responsibility from the Children and Families Act to provide free
infant meals is with school governors. To support governors with this
responsibility Somerset County Council offers a service to schools.
While we are developing the strategy, Somerset Schools Compact has
funded part of the Contract Support team. This work will be completed
by September 2014 at which point schools will need to buy support as
they did previously.
In addition, the DfE has funded the Children’s Food Trust and LACA to
offer support to schools to help them prepare for UIFSM’s.
SCC has been asked by the Children’s Food Trust and LACA to provide
any school in the County with one to three days of support on their
behalf. Schools will be expected to contribute £259 to get this support.
However, Contract Support proposes to offer any school that buys back
a Catering package from SSTEP this support free along with the 12
months of support, advice and auditing services.
Other key questions
Do we have to provide a hot meal – the legislation requires a meal, but
the expectation in all the written work from national government is that it
will be a hot meal. Therefore we suggest that if your Governors are
finding it difficult to secure hot meals that you contact us to see if there
are ways that it can be achieved.