Finally! Carrot, Not Stick!

Schools are being encouraged to offer special meal deals to lure pupils away from local takeaways and into dining halls for healthier lunches.

The Department for Education is lifting restrictions that force schools in England to charge the same price for the same item for every pupil, in order to allow them to offer price promotions.

Sanity? In government policy? Well, I never!

The pilot, which offered children in 20 local primary schools all meals for £1 saw school meal numbers rise from 6,360 a week to an average of 11,242 during the first half of the spring term. Some schools more than doubled the number of children usually served. But when the North Somerset pilot, supported by the School Food Trust, finished, the council was unable to plug the financial gap. The price of school meals soon shot up to £2.

Ah. I see a drawback looming...

Councillor Lynda Mitchell, commissioning and contracts manager at North Somerset council, said: "If you do special offers and sibling discounts then that can be an awful lot of money. Without council funding it's proving impossible for the schools to take the extra hit."

Really, councillor? Can't you just...cut something else?

I mean, looking at your jobs site, do you really need that Area Officer job to 'improve and enhance the maintenance of the streetscene'? And I can't see why childcare should be the job of the council, so just get rid of those 'Early Years Sessional Worker' and 'Early Years Worker' posts and let the private sector pick up the slack.

And as for 'transporting students to and from our centres and on activities in our minibuses', well, can't they get the regular bus instead?

There! That wasn't so hard, was it?