Hot meals in schools face Edinburgh axe

01 January 2000
Hot meals in schools face Edinburgh axe

Scotland's second biggest council may end school meals for primary pupils as part of a wide range of proposed cuts.

Edinburgh Council is considering a proposal to replace hot meals for primary and special schools with a packed lunch and a cold drink as part of a bid to reduce its budget by £27.8m.

Last year, the authority's Labour group agreed not to go ahead with contentious plans to end hot meals in schools, but the issue has been raised again.

Edinburgh Catering Services is fighting the move, which it says will lead to 300 redundancies. It has proposed an alternative scheme whereby kitchens would close in smaller schools and food be transported in from the larger ones. But manager of the service Carol McGhie admitted this would not achieve the savings the council required.

McGhie said of the proposals: "We have offered eight years of good, efficient service. The council will lose these workers' expertise and craft skills forever if they get rid of them."

The Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email

Start the working day with The Caterer’s free breakfast briefing email

Sign Up and manage your preferences below

Check mark icon
Thank you

You have successfully signed up for the Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email and will hear from us soon!

Jacobs Media is honoured to be the recipient of the 2020 Queen's Award for Enterprise.

The highest official awards for UK businesses since being established by royal warrant in 1965. Read more.

close

Ad Blocker detected

We have noticed you are using an adblocker and – although we support freedom of choice – we would like to ask you to enable ads on our site. They are an important revenue source which supports free access of our website's content, especially during the COVID-19 crisis.

trade tracker pixel tracking