'Chartwells have failed and council needs to fix school meals fiasco' says catering firm Forerunner

Southbourne-based catering company Forerunner, which is successfully providing hot meals to several schools who chose not to go with Chartwells, said they complained about the way Dorset County Council ran the tender process.

Declan O’Toole, from Forerunner, claimed the problems could have been avoided if Dorset County Council had broken the contract up and allowed local small and medium-sized businesses to compete.

“The Government’s school meals plan is not a fiasco,” he said.

“In fact, we think free school meals has been a very good idea and will definitely help improve children’s attainment and achievement in Key Stage 1.

“In Dorset however, Chartwells have made it a fiasco and Dorset County Council need to take responsibility for it as they appointed Chartwells.

“When Dorset County Council ran this tender they always wanted one company to do everything – from Lyme Regis to Christchurch and up to Shaftesbury. That’s too big. DCC could have broken this contract up and this wouldn’t have happened.

“We actually withdrew from the tender process and complained about this very matter but were totally ignored. It’s so frustrating to be standing on the sidelines and watching this debacle unfold and know how easily it could have been avoided.”

Forerunner is currently providing 1,500 school meals a day to a small number of schools who opted out of the central contract. There have been none of the problems seen by the schools who receive their meals from Chartwells.

St James Primary School pupils who were served meals from Forerunner

One of Forerunner’s schools is St James Primary School in Pokesdown where head teacher Richard Warren is delighted with the service they’ve received. “They offer fantastic quality food from just round the corner at prices that are competitive,” he said.

“We had been with Cygnet, now Chartwells, last year and we made the decision way back last year not to go into tender for the new contract and to source it ourselves instead.

“We’ve never looked back, we’re really chuffed with everything. Part of me thinks the local authority should have done something about it earlier on. It’s the same company with a different name churning out the same food.”

Mr O’Toole said DCC now needed to step in: “Chartwells have just totally failed and DCC need to put their hand up and say we got this very wrong, step in, stop it and get it fixed.

“Give these schools packed lunches for the next three months and get the local Dorset companies who have now proved their capability to sort it out and get it running properly from January.”

Chartwells which has a four year contract to deliver more than 11,000 school meals a day across Dorset ran into major problems this week when meals failed to arrive. Some heads had to send out for takeaways or go to local supermarkets to provide lunch for the children.

'Meals were so poor we refused to serve them to children'

Kitchen staff at Lytchett Matravers School were so unhappy with the quality of the chicken tikka masala delivered by Chartwells they refused to serve it to the children.

Instead, they rushed to the local shops and rustled up an alternative lunch of meatballs for the children.

The school has complained to Chartwells and said it has been assured it will not happen again.

Head teacher Simon France said: “We just opened it up and thought ‘no, we’re not serving that.’”

However he said Chartwells had been put in an almost impossible position.

“They are the easy target at the moment but the timeframes they have been working with have massively exacerbated the problem.

“They were still waiting on funding decisions in the summer term which affected things. If the Government wanted this to run smoothly, these things should have been sorted out much more quickly.”

There have been problems three days in a row at Bishop Aldhelm’s School in Poole, where hot meals have been delivered too late to be served.

Meals have arrived an hour and a quarter late every day, forcing staff to make packed lunches for children.

At Upton Infants School, there have been problems with puddings and food trays not arriving. But head Nigel Helm said: “The situation is getting better and you get the impression Chartwells are really trying hard.

“Free school meals are a great idea and all our children are enjoying the food and the experience. They are walking out of the lunch hall happy and that’s the most important thing.”

'Chartwells need to be more open with parents'

Concerned mother Marianne Van Munster has called for Chartwells to be more open with parents if it wants to rebuild trust.

Marianne, who has a five-year-old son in year one at Sturminster Marshall School, said she asked questions about the nutritional value of the meals served by Chartwells before term even started but received no response.

She said: “We had a fancy brochure from them but it actually told you nothing. There was no details about the levels of salt, fat or calories in their meals.

“I would like to see parents conduct mystery shopper visits to their kitchens and schools to see if they are delivering what they claim they are. They have to do something to start building trust again.”

What Dorset County Council said

Cllr Toni Coombs, Dorset’s County Council, Cabinet member for education, said: "For several years we have arranged a single school meals contract for primary, infant and middle schools in Dorset, Bournemouth and Poole. Schools can choose to use this contract or, if they prefer, make alternative arrangements.

"The contract was due for renewal at the same time the Government announced its plans for free meals for all 5,6 and 7-year-olds. One of the main criticisms of our previous contract was that food was not being produced locally. A condition of the new contract was that meals were prepared in Dorset using fresh, local produce.

"A full EU procurement process was carried out and Chartwells submitted a proposal which met all of the criteria. The evaluation was split 50 per cent price and 50 per cent quality.

"One of the main reasons we use a single contract is to make sure our rural schools are not disadvantaged. If provision was broken into smaller areas, many parts of the county would not receive a service or, if they did, some schools would pay more for meals than others.

"Although we arranged the contract, Dorset County Council does not pay any money to Chartwells. Schools pay for the meals from their own budgets. We have asked Chartwells to refund every school that has had to buy food out of its own budget.

“Our officers are out visiting the affected schools and we are in constant contact with Chartwells to make sure any issues are resolved as a matter of urgency."