For those schools who are considering managing their own catering service, guidance has now been compiled to help you in the decision making process. To access the full document go to:

Leeds advice for schools - procurement and catering advice

The guidance gives you:

an options appraisal for catering - this examines what your options are, and looks at the advantages and disadvantages of taking the service in house, procuring a private sector provider or appointing the Leeds Catering Agency.
a SWOT analysis conducted with Leeds opted out schools, September 2006: this gives the ’highs and lows ‘ of those schools managing their own catering service.

If after thoroughly going through the information, the school still decides that it wants a change, then the guidance addresses the large amount of legislation, and the additional responsibilities that accompany managing an in house catering service. The guidance covers the following areas:

Health and safety guidance
Food safety and hygiene
The selection and authorisation of suppliers, product traceability and ingredient specification and declaration
Nutrition and healthy eating
Staffing and personnel
General provision

If you are looking into having an external provider, then please click here for guidance on the procurement process.

For a list of approved suppliers please click below:

Approved providers

The guidance has contributions from the Catering Agency, The Building Agency, the School Meals Strategy Team, Procurement Unit, Community Dietician and the Procurement and Service Advice Team.

If you have any problems accessing the information, please contact the Service Advice Team on 0113 247 5268.

For more information on Therapeutic diets in Leeds Schools please see below:

Therapeutic diets in Leeds Schools

Research report

Catering staff research

Leeds Cultural and Religious School Food Policy

Leeds is a city of equal opportunity where everyone has a fair chance, and people from all backgrounds take part in community life, creating a society that is varied, vibrant and proud. We celebrate the value of different religions and cultures and work towards tackling discrimination and inequality.

To demonstrate this commitment a Cultural and Religious Policy for school food has been developed as part of the Leeds School Meals Strategy. It responds to the growing diversity of food being served throughout our schools and aims to meet the needs of families and local communities, share good practice and promote awareness in fostering cultural understanding.

The content is informed by our Leeds catering providers in consultation with representatives of community faith through the Leeds Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education (SACRE). The document is aimed at a range of key partners including school leadership team, catering providers, local authority planners and those involved in procurement of school food provision. The policy sets out clear recommendations and guidance to inform current practice and future school food catering contracts.

It is important that all children are encouraged to take their school meal especially those on free school meals. The policy aims to develop confidence amongst community leaders, families and children. By specifically focusing on religious requirements such as halal, vegetarian and kosher the policy aims to offer reassurances for the appropriateness school meal provision. This will also result in the promotion of health and wellbeing and a reduction in health inequalities because more children and young people will be eating school meals and taking up their free school meal entitlement.

The policy provides information on good practice conducted in our schools including training, storage, preparation and service to help children make informed choices.

The document provides evidence from Leeds catering providers to demonstrate appropriate procurement specifications for traceability and adequate training programmes to develop catering staff skills and knowledge.

Schools and catering providers are required to adhere to the content of the policy in their service contracts and school food policies.

Please contact the School Meals Team should you require further information or make a contribution to its content.

Email: education.leedsschoolmeals@educationleeds.co.uk

Please click here to view the Leeds Cultural and Religious School Food Policy

Local authority policy and the consent to trade food from vehicles parked on highways and council land.

Schools and catering providers have sought advice and clarity from the school meals team regarding local authority policy that restricts the sale foods and confectionery from mobile vans parked outside school gateways. The attached document responds to this request, and provides appropriate LCC contact details. To view please click the document Local authority policy and consent to trade.

Cashless Systems for Dining Rooms - A guide to procuring and implementing a cashless system

(To view the Cashless System Toolkit please click on the link below this text)

More schools are choosing to procure cashless systems in order to improve their cafeteria service. These systems can be costly therefore it is important that schools are aware of the benefits and limitations before making the investment. The reasons why schools and local authorities choose to invest in a cashless system are varied and often depend on their local needs, some of which include the systems capacity to:

Improve the cafeteria service:

Speed up service and reduce queuing time so pupils can do other activities;
Make claiming free school meals anonymous and comfortable;
Remove the need for students to carry cash in school;
Ensure that money provided by parents to pay for school meals is used only for that purpose;
Provide parents, carers, pupils and staff with nutrition and food choice information;
Make payment for school meals easier by using cheques or wall mounted coin and note loaders;

Improve the administration systems:

Improve efficiency of information flow and administration systems;
Provide accurate data to inform performance indicators for school lunch uptake;
Inform budget and service planning procedures.

To help schools in this process an electronic e-guidance pathway has been developed in partnership with the School Meals Team, and Commissioning, Procurement, Business and Development Team. The e-guidance pathway aims to offer impartial information to advise and support the selection, procurement and implementation of a cashless system and offers a range of suggested validated tools and templates.

The Cashless System Toolkit can be accessed from the Leeds Advice for Schools website.

5a Small Equipment Inventory

The 5a funding was issued last year to the totals of £1,225 for primary schools and £2,800 for secondary schools. Although there was a good response from schools ordering new equipment, there remains an under spend for some schools. Where schools consider an under spend exists, please contact the School Meals Team for further information.

Please click below to view the report:

5a Small Equipment Inventory

Building Schools for the Future (BSF) is a new strategic approach to capital investment in school estates that will create the environment for the Government agenda of educational transformation.
Within Leeds the BSF programme includes 15 schools in Wave 1 which will take place over 3 phases with the final phase due to be completed in 2010.

The School Meals Team is working with the BSF team and the schools in helping to deliver improved eating environments.

Feasibilty Study

The project responds to the need to underpin the standards with high quality kitchens so that healthier school meals can be prepared. Working in partnership with Education Leeds Estates team and the LCC Catering Agency - work is underway to survey and assess the quality of our school kitchens. We have recently commissioned architects to audit a small cohort of primary schools. The schools were selected based on the DCSF BB98 guidelines / schools without kitchens, re-heat / cook chill kitchens and those requiring investment in issues related to ventilation, health and safety criteria set out by the Department for Children, School and Families (DCSF) specification. The selected schools are to inform future designs and form part of the broader investigation gathering evidence.

The project is on going and will in the short term focus on primary schools and in the long term address some secondary schools. The aim is to inform and encourage joint funding projects, to improve our kitchens.

The School Meals Team were invited to the BSF Design Festival to run a workshop around dining room design. For results of the workshop please open the document below:

BSF Design Festival

See the Building Schools for Future for more information

To find out more information about dining rooms, click below:

Dining Room

Service Level Agreements: A Guide on how to get the best school meals service for your school from your Council.

Working in partnership, as part of the Leeds school meal strategy to further improve quality of school food, the school meals team and commissioning procurement and business development team have developed this common guidance. It has been produced to assist all PRUs, SILCs, Children’s Centre’s, Primary and Secondary Schools to negotiate their school meal SLA with the Leeds City Council Direct Service Organisation (DSO) The Catering Agency, (also known as Crown Point Catering).

The guidance was developed in consultation with LCC The Catering Agency, Bursars, Governors and the NHS-Leeds PCT and, NHS Community Dietitian and draws on good practice from Leeds schools and the national evidence base. It signposts schools to key documents and sets out mandatory requirements for both the school and your catering provider. It also includes general recommendations - many of which may already be implemented in schools. The guidance includes recommendations for service improvement and health promotion activities, the majority of which are generic. It can be used for individual schools and/or clusters of schools with similar needs. The points raised are not exhausted; your partnership discussions will identify other local needs that may not be included in this guide. It also includes general information on local and national resources and policy background to improving school meals. Please consider the points highlighted in nine sections during your planning and negotiating sessions.

To access the document please click below:

Service Level Agreements A Guide on how to get the best school meals service from your Council.

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