Davis calls for an end to CCT era
By David Shrimpton
Compulsory competitive tendering (CCT) has served its purpose and should now be abolished, claims John Davis, chairman-elect of the Local Authority Caterers Association (LACA).
In an interview with Caterer last week, Mr Davis said: "I would very much like to see the back of CCT. It has achieved its objective; it is past its sell-by date."
But he conceded that the CCT regime had been successful in making local authority direct service organisations (DSOs) more businesslike.
Mr Davis, general manager of Shropshire DSO Shire Services and currently LACA vice-chairman, will take over as chairman next week. He replaces Pat Fellows, whose two-year term is coming to an end.
Mr Davis said he had a number of priorities for his term of office. One was to launch LACA's charter mark for school meals providers - to be known as the LACA Mark of Distinction - by the end of 1996. The aim of this initiative is to raise meal standards and publicise good practice in the promotion of healthy eating.
"One of the big disadvantages of CCT is that it has reduced the quality of meals in some areas," Mr Davis said.
A further priority will be a recruitment drive to boost LACA membership from 800 to 1,000. This will focus on bringing in more members from private firms, who are currently under-represented. "We need to be representative of all the people in the sector," Mr Davis said.
Key issues facing school caterers include the Government's White Paper proposal that individual schools take responsibility for their own catering budgets. Mr Davis, who believes the proposal will become a reality in some form, whatever the colour of the next Government, said LACA was not opposed in principle to the delegation of budgets.
But he warned that unless a fair formula was found, small schools could lose out under the proposals. "A larger school can almost certainly make money out of its catering, if it is run properly. At the moment, with area contracts, the bigger schools subsidise the smaller schools."
