Some thoughts about #freeschoolmeals. Firstly it is abhorrent that the government has abandoned the idea of giving £30 vouchers to people to feed their kids & is instead paying companies who are giving families cheap/unhealthy substitutes & making hefty profit.

Secondly, many schools already have their meal services outsourced. In my last job we had a really bad inhouse service & a really bad external one. I ran a procurement exercise to get better...

We set the bar high in terms of our expectations round quality, cost, environmental health, H&S & safeguarding, so that in our initial round 7 of of the 10 original applicants chose not to go further.

The second stage was a taster day involving children from all our schools who got to meet the companies and taste their food. It was a lot of fun & the food was high quality (one of the very stuffed kids said to me at the end of the day, 'this was the best day ever').

A panel with staff & governors then grilled the applicants on their bids and scored them. We had 2 excellent respondents and 1 average. The winner won on applicaton & interview and was joint on the response from kids.

Contract was awarded following due diligence to check the information they'd provided on finance, health & safety, environmental health was accurate and getting references.

The company who won cooked food from scratch, using healthy ingredients which were mainly locally sourced and within the school meal price. (The company we used to use were more expensive and used mainly frozen foods).

Within a year they had turned our kitchens round bringing in competent head chefs, and producing good tasty food, that was affordable. So all children receiving school lunches were having a good deal whether they were free or not.

There are good ethical companies out there providing excellent food, &it is possible to procure them & keep them accountable. The government were wrong to outsource #freeschoolmeals at home, but have compounded it by choosing poor providers who are yet again doing a bad job.

So please @conservatives stop this at once and provide families with vouchers so they can get their kids a decent meal. #basicincomeforall #freeschoolmeals