Homes and Property | Home Page

Schools 'locked in bad food contracts'

Binding contracts with private caterers may be stopping hundreds of state schools from following Jamie Oliver's advice and improving their food. As many as 450 schools built under the government's Private Finance Initiative (PFI) could be locked into longterm deals.

Parents are worried these contracts force schools to serve cheap processed food or face huge financial penalties.

In Merton, six PFI schools are locked ina 25-year contract with New

Schools, which subcontracted catering to Scolarest.

Scolarest said it did not know of any complaints about its food, but Labour candidate Roger Casale said there is a "great deal of room for improvement".

In Islington, where a contract with Scolarest does not expire until 2007 a survey of headteachers found almost half thought its food was poor.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Sign up you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy notice .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT

Food
Outer London Boroughs
Schools