THE boss of the catering firm behind Dorset’s school meals fiasco has issued a public apology to the schools they let down.

Managing director of Chartwells Robin Mills was speaking at a meeting of Dorset County Council’s audit and scrutiny committee to investigate the failings that led to problems with the delivery of meals to schools at the start of term.

He told the committee: “The first thing to begin with is an apology.

“We take the service in Dorset, Bournemouth and Poole very seriously and I more than anybody else am well aware of the difficulties that we had at the start of this contract and the impact it has on schools.

“It has been a very important matter for us and I apologise to members and everybody else in this room and most importantly to the schools and parents and governors of those schools affected.”

County council chief executive Debbie Ward said they decided to award the £3.5m contract to one organisation because the number of school meals was set to rise from around 4,000 to 11,000 a day.

The first difficulty arose when Chartwells’ production unit at Ferndown was hit by a fire in June. A temporary facility was provided at Bovington Park but this proved problematic.

Cabinet member for education and communications Toni Coombs said problems only emerged on the first day of term, when some schools failed to have their meals delivered and others experienced issues with either late delivery or part orders.

A £450,000 compensation package is close to being agreed for the schools that have received packed lunches instead of hot meals. Chartwells are currently transporting meals from a base in Nottingham ahead of opening a new facility in Poole after half term.

Headteacher of Parley First School, John Bagwell, told the committee parents had lost confidence in the school meals programme. Cllr Mike Brooke, representing the Borough of Poole, branded Chartwells “a disgrace.”

And committee chairman Cllr Trevor Jones said: “We don’t want any more horror stories like this.”

He warned Mr Mills to stop delivering substandard food after hearing mouldy chicken had been found in a sandwich at a Poole school.

“If this is not stamped out there will be a prosecution.”

‘A fundamental mistake’ in the contract

A food contractor who feels his firm was deliberately excluded from Dorset’s hot school meal tendering process branded the issue “a shambles”.

Angry Declan O’Toole who runs Forerunner told councillors it had been “a fundamental mistake” to give the contract to one supplier Chartwells instead of breaking it down into different elements and involving a number of suppliers.

Mr O’Toole, giving evidence to Dorset’s audit and scrutiny committee, said: “As you can tell I am very angry about this. I believe EU and Whitehall rules on procurement have been broken or ignored.”

He said he had been given a ‘perfunctory’ 30 minutes with council officers in the tendering process but he knew Chartwells had been given four hours.

His firm supplies school meals to a number of schools across Bournemouth and Poole and there had been no problems.

Peter Johnson, director of Star Cuisine, which is successfully providing freshly-cooked hot meals to three schools in Poole, agreed. He told the Echo: “I believe giving one company the monopoly of meals across Dorset was a mistake.”

He called on DCC to spend the compensation money creating additional kitchen hubs so smaller companies could step in and provide meals to schools.