One parent's reply in response to Andrew Judge's letter to The Guardian

Dear Sirs

I write in response to Andrew Judges letter yesterday (27/04/05) in the Guardian. He is right but only in so far as I, as a parent, had not complained about school dinners, yet. My children started school dinners in December as I felt it would be temporarily easier as I was expecting my third child any day. Within a couple of weeks my son wanted packed lunches again, complaining about getting the same food several days in a row all because he cannot have egg, and the 'mashed' broccoli which he thought was intentionally served like that! The only reason my daughter wanted to continue with school dinners was because she could leave most of it, she didn't like it, and get out to the playground quickly.

The quality of school dinners had been raised as an issue at a meeting by the Schools Parent Liaison Group, and informal group including parents, governors and our primary school's headmistress. One of the governors had decided to canvass the pupils opinion of school dinners by eating dinners with the children for a week, thereby being in a better position to judge the quality of the dinners themselves and to gain an understanding of what the children thought. Then, Jamie's School Dinners brought this matter to the fore and from there concerned Merton parents have set up an action group to campaign for better food in Schools. They met for their inaugural meeting on the 20th April.

What I find most surprising is how anyone could state that being 'locked' into a 25 year contract does not hamper them. An Independent Inquiry into how these anti-competitive contracts have been allowed without adequate contractual safe-guards should be undertaken immediately.

Yours faithfully

Cait Taylor

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