Promoting Good Nutrition through Healthy School Meals

Mr Kieran Donnelly, Comptroller and Auditor General, today issued his report to the Assembly on “Promoting Good Nutrition through Healthy School Meals ”. Mr Donnelly said: “A balanced diet is essential for children and young people if they are going to develop and grow into healthy adults. School provides an ideal opportunity to convey positive messages about healthy eating. In this regard, therefore, I commend the hard work of school employing authorities and school catering staff in bringing about significant improvements in the quality and nutritional value of school meals. However, whilst considerable steps have been taken, further improvements must be made to ensure that all schools comply with the compulsory nutritional standards and that children are encouraged to make healthy eating choices.”

Background

Statistics show that around one in five boys and one in four girls are overweight or obese in their first year of primary school. Following concerns about the quality of children’s diets and the content of school meals, compulsory nutritional standards were introduced in September 2005. In broad terms, the standards try to ensure that children eat a wide variety of foods which provide plenty of energy and the nutrients they need for proper growth and development. The standards do not ban any particular foods but limit the frequency with which high fat foods are served.

Compliance with Nutritional Standards

  • While two thirds of school Principals surveyed by the Health Promotion Agency in 2008 considered that their school lunch service was fully compliant with the nutritional standards, the report calls for greater sanctions against those schools that consistently fail to comply with the standards
  • the continued existence of unhealthy food in vending machines and tuck shops in some schools is at odds with the healthy eating message being delivered by school meals services
  • Among other things, additional funding of £3.2 million in 2009-10, was meant to ensure that the food content value of school meals is a minimum of 50 pence in nursery, primary and special schools; and a minimum of 60 pence in post-primary schools. Many school catering supervisors have experienced difficulties in meeting the requirements of the standards within the budget available
  • While Principals, teaching staff and school Governors play an important role in promoting healthy eating and encouraging uptake of school meals, they had received only limited training. The report demonstrates how the active support of school Principals is one of the key factors in the successful implementation of nutritional standards
  • Most schools have relevant policies in place to guide and support the development of whole school healthy eating programmes. However, there is a need for more consistent and effective monitoring of these to keep targets and priorities relevant and up to date
  • At present there is no single mechanism for sharing good practice in healthy eating across schools which can be accessed by teachers, catering staff, school governors and parents. An easily accessible, informative website would be an ideal central resource and the report encourages the Department to fully consider the benefits which could be realised through such a valuable facility.

Improving the Uptake of School Meals

  • Just over half of all pupils in Northern Ireland’s 1,200 schools eat school lunches on a regular basis (52.5 per cent in 2009/around 165,000 pupils). Overall uptake in Northern Ireland remains higher than that in both England and Scotland.
  • While the Department provided £36 million for the provision of free school meals in 2009-10, a key finding of the report was that around 22 per cent of the 58,000 pupils registered as entitled to free school meals did not take up this entitlement. This meant that some 12,700 pupils were missing out on a free school meal to which they were entitled.
  • Estimates also indicate that as many as a further 8,000 children across Northern Ireland may be missing out on their entitlement to free school meals due to not being registered.
  • Disappointingly, just over half of the pupils (54%) interviewed for research by the Health Promotion Agency were aware of healthy eating initiatives in their school. Marketing of school meals needs to be coordinated and driven by the Department to ensure that: clear and consistent messages are provided at regional and local levels; duplication of effort is avoided and the exchange of good practice is maximised.
  • There remains considerable scope for increasing the number of children eating school meals. It is essential that the Department produces quantitative indicators and sets challenging but realistic targets for the increase in uptake of healthier school meals

Pricing and Costing of School Meals

  • Over the past ten years the average price of a school meal has increased by 78% against an increase in food prices of just under 30%
  • There are wide variations between school kitchens in the cost of producing a school meal. For example, in one Board the unit cost of producing a school meal ranged from £1.68 to £6.63
  • The price of a school meal here is relatively expensive compared with England and Scotland. For example the report notes that a school meal in a post-primary school was £1.68 in Scotland, £1.88 in England and £2.30 in Northern Ireland
  • Contrary to official Departmental policy, school meals were subsidised across the Boards to the tune £2.7 million in 2008-09.