School Meals - Council backs down
WORKERS, NOV 2007 ISSUE
School Meals in Waltham Forest, north east London, will continue to be kept as an in–house subsidised service until 2009. This victory was achieved after a local campaign fought to prevent the reduction and privatisation of the service, with many local people signing their petition for a properly funded service. This culminated in dinner ladies, cooks, teachers, parents and children marching to the town hall armed with kitchen equipment such as wooden spoons, saucepans, and tin lids chanting "If you want to keep school dinners, bang a pan!"
School dinners have deteriorated since government nutritional standards for school meals – seen as a key protection for child health – were abandoned by Thatcher (this was by no means her only attack on children – she was also known as "milk snatcher" for doing away with children's entitlement to free school milk). During the Labour years the service has been in crisis, with many local authorities doing away with hot meals altogether, substituting sandwiches for children for whom this might be the main nutritious meal of the day. In Waltham Forest, where child health is a real concern, jobs and standards were threatened by the council's move.
The fight has forced the council to back down. It has now promised to subsidise the school meals service until 2009, to bring schools which opted out back into the service, and to encourage schools to remain with Waltham Forest Catering.