Purpose

The County Council has a contract with
Chartwells for the provision of a primary phase free school meals
(FSM), paid meals and Universal Infant Free School Meals (UIFSM)
service. The participating schools have small finishing kitchens on
site; these are not full production kitchens. The contract is
currently worth approximately £12.165m per annum and is
currently used by 186 schools including academies, the alternative
provision college and maintained nurseries.
 
The County Council also holds a separate,
smaller, primary phase school meals contract with the Easy Lunch
Company to provide a localised delivered-in hot FSM, paid meals and
UIFSM service currently to 10 primary schools, that are without any
kitchen facilities, located mainly in the Horsham area. The value
of this contract is approximately £820,000 per
year. 
 
Both contracts will be at the end of their
legally permissible contract periods in July 2026 and so cannot be
extended. The County Council is legally required to provide access
to a compliant FSM and UIFSM service for infant aged
pupils.  Therefore, approval is sought
to commence a procurement process to secure the provision of
primary phase school meals following conclusion of the existing
contracts.

Decision

The Cabinet Member for Children, Young People
and Learning has approved
 

(1)The commencement of
two procurement processes for the provision of a primary phase
school meals service.  One contract will
be for schools who have finishing kitchens on site and one contract
for schools who mainly have no kitchen facilities on site and will
receive a delivered in hot meals service, with both contracts due
to commence in August 2026.
 

(2)The delegation of
authority to the Assistant Director (Education and Skills) to award
the contracts to the successful provider/s for the initial period
of 7 years and to extend the contracts for up to 3 additional years
subject to the satisfactory performance and delivery.