Telephone Number: 0151-929 3273
Email Address: info@cssolutionsltd.com

School catering and pupil welfare

Do you represent the school governing body or employer?

If so you have responsibilities as the duty holder for your pupil's welfare...

Your canteen, water dispensers, vending, pest control, PAT testing, Legionella and all school catering standards directly impact school budgets and pupil welfare!

Rigid control is crucial. An independent performance audit removes political bias,

stopping employees, suppliers and contractors having an operational free hand.

FACT: Your control of pupil welfare including pupil catering standards is only as good as the data you hold.

Independent statistical benchmarking ensures MEASURABLE efficiency and best

practice improvements, instantly reducing school operational risk.

Pupil welfare standards:

Why use us?

A recent quote from an audit completed at an independent school Nov 2011.

“We have had Jonathan back for a second year and could not recommend the audit highly enough!

The school was surprised at the number of issues where it was not meeting requirements.

With the help, assistance and willingness of Jonathan the majority of items were quickly corrected.”

Greater transparency is now the norm and expected by both parents and governors.

Audit results and recommendations improve efficiency, help you tighten control of school catering costs and reduce your operational vulnerability as the duty holder.

All areas linked to pupil welfare along with school catering standards once statistically benchmarked and understood become minimum standards... Is that 70%, 80% or even 90%? Transparency gives confidence!

Organise your free school survey....Click here.

Measure best practice and efficiency performance across all related departments:

Including - school catering facilities, school food policies, In-house caterer or contract caterer performance, vending/ water dispenser suppliers Legionella contractors, PAT testers, pest control and cleaners.

It is not possible for the school to define excellent standards without an independently qualified pupil welfare audit.

To establish excellent facilities you must remove the politics, IF NOT YOUR RESULTS ARE SUBJECTIVE!

Are yours 70%, 80% or 90% of where they could or should be?

Any department that believes standards are genuinely excellent has everything to gain by benchmarking and publicizing the facts so should welcome an independent audit...

A formal school catering audit independently of your in-house catering team or contract caterer gives parents and governors confidence through greater transparency.

IMPORTANT Special free to enter charity promotion incentive. macmillan.org.uk/Fundraisingforschoolsandyouth Scroll to the bottom of this page for full Ts & Cs.

Your audit will help you look after your pupil’s welfare and services budget while helping you improve your control of site standards. By taking the decision to help both yourself and your school you also help us make a far wider difference…

"1 IN 3 OF US WILL GET CANCER" Quote provided by Macmillan.

Due diligence and employer health and safety responsibilities:

The 'employer' may vary depending on the type of school, the Local Education Authority, governing body or who-ever is deemed to be in control of the premises. Either way the employer or school governing body is ultimately held responsible for pupil welfare as the “duty holder”.

As such they need to be able to measure school catering standards irrespective of employing your own staff or using contracted suppliers. Pupil welfare is clearly impacted by all catering facilities.

All school drinking water feeds and any school showers are included because they present both an E.coli and Legionella risk directly affecting pupil welfare.

Clearly any spend and risk relating to each of these areas is the school's responsibility!

Your bespoke audit benchmarks to the percentage point against best practice, legislation and efficiency measures, most importantly while reducing your workload! This is because it is the only truly effective method of establishing exactly which areas genuinely need your input.

Why use us?

You don't need to take our word for it; see what our customers say!

Previous quotes -

'We decided to use CSS to complete an audit of our school to ensure we were meeting all the current legislation. CSS were extremely professional in their approach from the very first phone call.

The company were very knowledgeable and the report was very easy to understand with each recommendation referenced. We felt the decision to use CCS was well justified and we will continue to use their services in the future.'

Pupil welfare, school catering standards, school catering costs and your audit results.

Your pupil welfare audit report results impact many welfare related services…

It is about measuring performance standards against best practice, legislation and financial efficiency.

It is certainly not just about daily healthy options! That's common sense; any amount of guidance and promotional activity is easily accessible via a number of reputable sources.

As follows:

Healthy eating guidance... the National School Meals Week Website; NSMW promotes healthy eating and gives general guidance. It is run by the Local Authority Caterers Association LACA.

The National School Meals Week is an annual event and took place in 2010 between the 8th and 12th November. Hundreds of schools take part in this annual event.

The Official Department for Education Website is an excellent source for healthy eating and school food hygiene guidelines. The site also includes various downloadable pdf's explaining compulsory nutritional standards.

Severe allergic reactions (anaphylaxis). For further information reference food allergies visit The Anaphylaxis Campaign. They are a UK charity created to exclusively meet the needs of the growing numbers of people at risk from severe allergic reactions and have valuable "freely available" detailed advice aimed specifically at schools.

Did you know? The Food Standards Agency estimate 850,000 food poisoning cases per year however professional opinion is that it is 15x times greater!!! The cost to the economy is £1.5 billion. Even at the most conservative of estimates this represents a significant % of the UK population.

Obesity in under fives

The School Food Trust (SFT) has issued voluntary nutrition guidelines for nursery schools and other organisations minding pre-school children.

The guidelines are aimed at reducing obesity in under-fives, following a report that found many were eating food more suitable for adults.

For the first time, said the SFT, “childcare providers have a nationally-recognised source of information about the foods they should offer young children, portion sizes, sample menus and recipes, advice on tackling fussy eating and involving children in food and cooking activities”.
The guidelines can be downloaded free from www.schoolfoodtrust.org.uk/eatbetterstartbetter or ordered in hard copy.

Establish school catering performance standards; you improve your management of school pupil welfare!

The risk is very real; pupil welfare is your responsibility as the duty holder!

Repercussions from poor standards become graphically clear when reading about the horific case of Mason Jones the 5yr old who died back in 2010 as a result of contracting E.coli from contaminated meat in his school dinner!

The meat was contaminated as a result of poor standards at the supplying butcher.

This illustrates why you must take all aspects relating to school food hygiene standards seriously... what controls do you have in place?

Importantly; is there any traceability proving you independently monitor standards? If not any potential for bias puts you at risk as the duty holder; your auditor should not be sourced by or connected too (in any way) specific departments, current suppliers or existing contractors!

Your pupil welfare school catering audit will help you both prove due diligence and improve efficiency which is of course crucial when also considering Ofsted assessment requirements. How?

An independent report clearly demonstrates that you take site risk seriously, results provide you with an unbiased system of continuous improvement relating to best practice and your pupil catering standards.

The law and school governors

For the very latest information regarding the law and school governors; please visit the Department for Education Website. The Departmental guide 'the law for school governors' is available for download on pdf.

Education catering standards: School catering performance: How can we be so sure your school catering audit will prove due diligence?

It's crucial that audit details are robust; your “bespoke” audit is site specific including legislative requirements covering best practice standards for your facilities.

Your Ofsted assessment… why wait for a poor Ofsted scores rating relating to standards? You need to take all aspects of pupil welfare seriously and aspire to exceed standards wherever possible! As a bare minimum ensuring catering facilities are adequate and that a formal method of checking standards is in place.

Understandably best practice related to food hygiene must be adopted wherever possible but this can prove very difficult to demonstrate. Unlike legislation best practice working requirements are much harder to quantify statistically.

When something goes wrong and legislation doesn’t cover the specific area it is a fact that without best practice you are extremely vulnerable… a pupil welfare school catering standards audit links best practice to statistical benchmarks and is tailored to your site making it absolutely vital!

In summary: As the duty holder it is important to remember that you are held responsible for pupil welfare no matter what local contractual agreements you may have in place with the caterers, vending operators, water dispenser suppliers, cleaners and Legionella contractors.

Also from a due diligence point of view you need to allow for the fact that at some stage 'something will go wrong'.

The local education authority will remind you of your responsibilities; this should not be after a problem has occurred!

Ensure your control of pupil welfare including school catering standards and school catering costs is based on data collated independently with any obvious conflict of interests removed.

For further general detail please visit our Home page or contact us Tel: 0151-929 3273; alternatively complete the simple form on the Contact us page to arrange your free school catering standards audit survey.

CHARITY PROMOTION!

A donation will be made to *Macmillan for every completed audit on your behalf. ‘Fundraising for schools and youth’. macmillan.org.uk/Fundraisingforschoolsandyouth

*You will receive ‘directly’ a formal recognition and thank you from the charity acknowledging the payment as being made.

Please be assured that this is a free to enter incentive applicable to each completed audit; audit prices still remain at the same competitively low price and have not been increased in any way!

Your audit results will help you look after your pupil’s welfare and your catering budgets while helping you improve your control of site standards.

By taking the decision to help both yourself and your school now you are also helping to make a far wider difference…

"1 IN 3 OF US WILL GET CANCER" Quote provided by Macmillan.