A shake-up of Carmarthenshire Council’s over-budget school catering service is on the cards.
The council has started to look at alternative ways of providing school meals such as creating what’s known as a local authority trading company which can operate commercially.
A report before a council scrutiny committee said catering bosses have looked at two such companies which provide school meals in Flintshire and the Vale of Glamorgan as successful examples.
They’ve also done an initial assessment of other methods such as commissioning an external contractor. Improving the current in-house model is another option.
The report said further analysis was needed on financial, staffing, and operational implications and discussions will take place with schools, catering staff, and trade unions.
“This work has provided a strong evidence base and a clear understanding of the scale of change required,” it said.
A decision on a preferred operating model is being pencilled in for this winter with changes implemented in 2027-28.
The report said the ongoing work had reached a critical stage and added: “The scale of financial and workforce challenges means that maintaining the current model is unlikely to be sustainable in the medium to long term.”
A subsidy is needed to cover the council’s catering costs which are around £500,000 overbudget per year. “This reflects a combination of structural cost pressures including staffing costs, low margins on meals, and limited flexibility to generate additional income within the current in-house model,” said the report.
High sickness absence, it said, was straining the service financially and operationally and recruitment and retention was challenging.
The catering service has to meet Welsh Government food and nutrition standards and align with the council’s own food strategy which has a focus on locally-sourced produce and health outcomes.
Any future catering model would also have to fit in with the council’s wider school reorganisation programme. The report said the impact on pupils and staff would be carefully assessed.
Members of the education, young people, and Welsh language scrutiny committee will hear more about the catering review at a meeting on June 23.
