Council to outsource school catering service

Council leaders have agreed to outsource their authority’s loss-making school catering service. City Catering provides meals to dozens of schools in the Potteries but relies on a subsidy from cash-strapped Stoke-on-Trent City Council.

Cabinet members have now approved plans to permanently transfer the service, including its staff, to a third-party operator or a joint venture company. The decision was taken in a behind-closed-doors meeting earlier this week.

A report considered by cabinet members, which has not been made public, set out the service’s current and projected financial performance, and the steps taken to improve the situation over the last 18 months. According to the minutes from the meeting, cabinet members noted the ‘implications and challenges for the council of continuing to deliver this service, including the level of financial pressure and subsidy required’.

The decision was taken in private due to it involving the ‘financial or business affairs of any particular person’. But earlier this year, the issue was discussed at a full council meeting after former councillor Desiree Elliott raised concerns over its future.

Councillor Alastair Watson, who was then cabinet member for finance, said City Catering had increased its prices in May and November in a bit to improve its financial position, but this had resulted in it losing customers. The number of schools using City Catering had fallen from 77 to 64 since the start of the year, with a further 11 giving notice following the most recent price hike.

City Catering had also introduced an online ordering system to reduce waste among other measures, but the cabinet’s decision suggests these had met with limited success.

Opposition Conservative councillor Dave Evans, who previously raised concerns over City Catering’s ongoing subsidy, welcomed the decision to transfer the service. He said: “The market for providing catering to schools has become quite competitive, particularly following academisation, with schools able to choose who they go to. There’s competition from the private sector as well as other authorities. I think we’re at the point where councils are having to decide which traded services are worth keeping.

“The important thing is that pupils are provided with good, nutritious meals.”

The cabinet delegated authority to director of resources Nick Edmonds, in consultation with cabinet member for children’s services Sarah Jane Colclough, to decide whether to transfer the service to a third party operator or a joint venture company.

The council has been approached for comment.