Council plans court action in Castle View redundancy dispute

West Sussex county council is threatening to take contract caterer Castle View to the High Court if it does not fork out a total of £300,000 to about 500 redundant dinner ladies.

Castle View ran the contract for three years, but lost out to Gardner Merchant (GM) earlier this year after the contract went out to tender. Primary schools are to switch from hot meals to sandwiches, with most staff made redundant.

Castle View claims transfer of undertakings rules (known as TUPE) should apply, making GM responsible for redundancy costs. The council and GM both disagree (Caterer, 3 June, page 7).

Last week, the council wrote to Castle View's solicitors demanding a response on the pay-offs issue within 14 days. If the reply is not satisfactory, the council says it will go to the High Court to force the contractor to pay.

Meanwhile, Castle View has complained to the European Commission about the way the council handled the tender. The contractor claims West Sussex deliberately tried to avoid its responsibilities under TUPE.

The row first blew up in May after the council awarded the contract to feed primary and secondary school pupils to GM. When Castle View said it would not foot the redundancy bill, GM pulled out. The council then split and amended the contract before re-tendering.

The £1.35m-a-year contract for 20 secondary schools was won by Fairfield and GM was again awarded the primary schools deal.

by David Shrimpton