SCHOOL MEALS
Corporate Watch
September 2005
4 Privatisation and school meals
4.1 Compulsory competitive tendering (CCT) and best value (BV)
'Contracting out is the villain of the piece... it has resulted in a de-skilled workforce, a shortage of staff and schools that are built without the facilities to cook proper meals.'It is the system of CCT introduced in the 1980s that has undermined school food provision. By opening up to market competition, meals switched from being a public provision to a private service, and services began to pursue the cheapest prices - or the highest profits. BV has the potential to be a far better system - but also the potential to be exactly the same as CCT, and where it has the potential to stay the same, this force will win out - because of the principle of competition.
- Margie Jaffe, UNISON national officer [1]
Because of the system of competition, even where a service is still provided by the Local Authority, it nevertheless operates as a private company, as it is judged to need to stay competitive with the service a private company could offer. The result is that standards stay the same across the sectors. The Soil Association notes how little catering differs across different companies and local authority services, because 'school catering has been made the commercial arm of every school or local authority rather than a basic facet of the education service.'[2] Even services run by local authorities are 'run as commercial enterprises that must meet budget and commercial targets,' often by minimising labour costs by relying on cheap heavily processed food allowing them to employ unskilled staff on poor contracts.[3]
Nevertheless, despite the fact that local authorities are pushed to operate as private companies would, there is still a minimum guaranteed of service accountabilitity - concerning local government pay scales for staff at least.
On paper, BV is less restrictive than CCT, allowing life cycle costs, rather than immediate price, and social and environmental criteria, to be taken into consideration. But in practice it 'generally upholds a culture where measurable, quantifiable costs remain king.'[4] Section 16 of the 1988 Local Government Act limits consideration of non-commercial criteria.[5] The limitations of the BV system are clear in what happened in Camarthenshire, an LEA with higher quality but higher cost school meals, due to on-site preparation using a high proportion of fresh, local ingredients. The county also had a high uptake of school meals. In 2001, the Audit Commission Best Value review criticised the service for its higher costs, demanding it cut down on fresh food preparations and cut staff's 'national conditions' of pay, or engage the private sector.[6]
4.2 The role of PFI
Under the Private Finance Initiative, a consortium of private companies is given a contract to design, build and operate a public work such as a school. The consortium raises the funds to do this from bank loans and through shareholders. The school is then rented back to the LEA. Currently there are 130 PFI and PPP contracts for primary and secondary schools in the UK.[7] As UNISON points out, it is important to remember that PFI does not represent any new finance because all the money is eventually paid back, plus interest on the bank loans and more for shareholder profits. PFI contracts can last up to 35 years, so even if the initial costs of a project are paid back within a few years, the consortium will continue to be paid for the duration of the contract, and thus continue making profits from taxpayers' money. Although PFI schemes are usually far more expensive than traditional methods of financing public works, UNISON suggests that one reason why they are favoured by the government is that it does not appear as borrowing on the nation's balance sheet.[8]Many people believe that PFI is playing a key role in the erosion of democracy in education. According to UNISON 'PFI in the education sector is not just about providing school buildings: it is also about privatising public services.'[9] Teachers, parents and governors often feel they were not consulted adequately or kept informed about the PFI process: LEAs can withhold information about affordability or value for money on PFI schemes because it is deemd to be 'commercially confidential' – even though it could have vital implications for children's education. UNISON reports that 'the Audit Commission has identified a strong correlation between how satisfied schools users were with their new school and their level of involvement during the design phase.'[10] The length of PFI contracts also makes it difficult for people to influence local politics through democracy – whoever you vote for, the same PFI consortium controls your child's school for the next twenty years.
Some PFI schools have found that the lengths of PFI contracts, by tying schools into long term agreements with private contractors, can hinder schools' efforts in improving the quality of meals to keep up with government guidelines.[11] The contracts are described by UNISON as 'protracted and very inflexible.' According to UNISON national officer Margie Jaffe 'once you are tied into a PFI contract you lose all flexibility and control over what goes on.'[12] So even if teachers, pupils and parents are unhappy with a situation it can be legally very difficult to get out of it.
A campaign group in the London Borough of Merton said they had been told by the LEA that six new PFI schools in the borough might be exempt from the new guidelines because of their contracts. Under these contracts, schools are locked into a 25-year PFI contract with New Schools, which has subcontracted all its services in a 25-year contract to Atkins Asset Management, which has in turn given a 25-year catering contract for these six schools to Scolarest. So despite complaints by parents, teachers and governors about the quality of the food, and new government regulations, the terms of the PFI contract keep Scolarest secure in its contract. In addition, the PFI schools in Merton have been built without proper kitchens, limiting the possibility for freshly cooked food.[13]
Islington borough's education contractor, CEA, allegedly said that the borough's schools could not opt out of their contract with Scolarest as they would have to pay the equivalent of a year's profit as compensation. According to Bert Schouwenburg of the GMB, 'if we didn't have either of these unwanted companies seeking to make money out of Islington council-tax payers we would be able to concentrate on giving the kids a square meal every day.'[14]
4.3 The privatisation of education
The changes of the 1980s allowed the quality of school meals to deteriorate as it became a privatised service, open to companies as a profit-making venture, and more recently for a small number of multinationals to gain increasing number of contracts. The legislative reforms of that decade - amidst a general culture of under-investment - encouraged these companies, removed the nutritional standards that might work as a barrier to their capability to push down costs, and obliged all local authority controlled services to operate in the same manner by competing with them.There are a number of other was, beyond the issue of school meals, in which the private sector is encroaching on education. Inspections services are contracted out from OFSTED. A management consultancy firm, Hay Management Consultants, was awarded a contract to develop performance-related pay for teachers, a measure opposed by teachers unions.[15] Education Action Zones, part of an initiative to raise education standards in disadvantaged areas, are required to cooperate with businesses, which are often multinationals. Schools are expected to forge close relationships with the businesses, and they are expected to help manage schools through Action Forums, which are separate from LEAs.[16] These have now been transformed into Excellence in Cities Action Zones (EiCAZs) or Excellence Clusters.[17] Under the Academies system, businesses are invited to sponsor schools in deprived areas, which are 'set up as companies,' [18] and private sponsors gain a significant amount of control over the curriculum. In May 2005 a House of Commons Select Committee advised the government to slow down the project, as evidence revealed that schools were failing to improve standards.[19] LEAs have been encouraged to hand over their management services to companies. The first LEA to do so was Islington, where Cambridge Education Associates took over the full functions of the LEA in 2000 - and was subsequently penalised for failing to meet its targets. [20]
This has amounted to a growth of the ideology of outsourcing of services so that 'the private sector has been given a role in the delivery and management of the state education system.' [21]
References
[1] UNISON Positively Public campaign, News 'PFI contracts threaten healthier school meals,' 24.04.2005 www.unison.org.uk/positivelypublic/news_view.asp?did=1980 (viewed 09.09.2005)
[2] The Soil Association, 'Food for Life: Do our children need healthy food?' p.42-3
www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/9f788a2d1160a9e580256a71002a3d2b/65a3b4988446e96280256db400380e4c/$FILE/Healthy%20local%20organic%20school%20meals.pdf (viewed 09.09.2005)
[3] ibid. p.28
[4] ibid. p.49
[5] Kevin Morley and Adrian Morley, School Meals: healthy eating and sustainable food chains' Cardiff University, Association for Public Service Excellence briefing, January 2004; p.63
[6] The Soil Association, 'Food for Life: Do our children need healthy food?' p.49-50
www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/9f788a2d1160a9e580256a71002a3d2b/65a3b4988446e96280256db400380e4c/$FILE/Healthy%20local%20organic%20school%20meals.pdf (viewed 09.09.2005)
[7] www.partnershipsuk.org.uk/projectsdatabase/projectsdatabase.html (viewed 06.08.05)
[8] UNIOSN 'Understanding the Private Finance Initiative: the school governor's essential guide to PFI', January 2002 www.unison.org.uk/acrobat/12174.pdf (viewed 30.07.05)
[9] UNISON 'What is wrong with PFI in schools?', September 2003 www.unison.org.uk/acrobat/13672.pdf (viewed 27.07.05)
[10] ibid.
[11] Felicity Lawrence and Katharine Quarmby, 'Private deals block Jamie's school dinners,' The Guardian 25.04.2005 www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1469502,00.html (viewed 27.06.2005);
UNISON, 'PFI Contracts threaten healthier school meals.' 25.04.2005 www.unison.org.uk/positivelypublic/news_view.asp?did=1980 (viewed 27.06.2005)
[12] UNISON, 'PFI Contracts threaten healthier school meals.' 25.04.2005 www.unison.org.uk/positivelypublic/news_view.asp?did=1980 (viewed 27.06.2005)
[13] Felicity Lawrence and Katharine Quarmby, 'Private deals block Jamie's school dinners,' The Guardian 25.04.2005 www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1469502,00.html (viewed 27.06.2005)
[14] Letters in response to Guardian's article about the PFI conrracts. 27.04.2005, www.guardian.co.uk/food/Story/0,2763,1471200,00.html (viewed 09.09.2005)
[15] BBC News, 'How teachers can earn £35,000+' 08.08.99 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/education/specials/green_paper/389151.stm viewed (06.09.05)
[16] Socialist Outlook, 'Getting down to business,' www.labournet.org.uk/so/36education.html (viewed 06.08.05)
[17] Excellence in cities, www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/sie/eic/ (viewed 06.08.05)
[18] Academies - Organisation and governance www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/academies/what_are_academies/organisation/?version=1 (viewed 06.08.05)
[19] Matthew Taylor, 'Private academies fail Commons exam,' The Guardian 18.03.05 www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1440487,00.html (viewed 06.08.05)
[20]Socialist Outlook, 'Getting down to business,' www.labournet.org.uk/so/36education.html (viewed 06.08.05)
[21] UNISON, Privatisation update January 2005