News

Siobhan O’Neill reports from the LACA National Seminar at Chesford Grange, Kenilworth on Friday 24th October.

On the last day of one of the most challenging half terms LACA has ever had to face, Neil Porter opened the National Seminar saying, “This half term has been dynamic for lots of reasons and everyone in the room should be very proud of what they’ve achieved because it’s no mean feat.”

LACA National Chair Carrieanne Bishop (pictured below) welcomed delegates to the event and congratulated former Chair Anne Bull on her recent Lifetime Achievement Award.

Ann Corrigan, Managing Director, Institute of Hospitality.
Kicking off the day’s presentations, Ann Corrigan from the Institute of Hospitality spoke to delegates about the value of measuring excellence to ensure a high level of service.

“I passionately believe in the power of the business tool,” she told delegates as she explained that the role of the Institute is to promote best practice in the hospitality industry and they achieve this via a range of resources as well as the Hospitality Assured accreditation.

Corrigan asked the room, “what does excellence look like?” suggesting it could be evidenced in increased customer satisfaction. She said that measuring excellence helped businesses understand how they were performing in comparison to their peers and competitors. Elements that could be measured might include operational targets, uptake levels and key performance indicators, for example on waste.

Hospitality Assured seeks to measure excellence based on customer satisfaction. It helps caterers to understand their customers in order to better respond to their needs. Many stakeholders may bring differing needs. A third party can help caterers discover what they are saying.

Hospitality Assured provides a framework and measures the business’ performance level, showing what excellent organisations should be doing and asking questions about whether and how they are meeting those objectives.

Corrigan talked delegates through the nine steps and 44 criteria centred around the five principles; customer focussed, results based, service delivery, responding to people and continuous learning. It measures progress on the journey towards excellence, helping businesses to grow and identify any shortcomings as well as helping to deliver a mechanism for improvement.

Corrigan said the business tool was available for £199 but that once people had committed to making the improvements and put the effort in, many went on to seek the full accreditation.

Maya de Souza, Head of Sustainable Public Procurement, DEFRA
DEFRA has reviewed public procurement and developed a simpler set of tools including a revised Buying Standard and Balanced Scorecard to help procurers.

De Souza explained that the department had worked with Peter Bonfield who played a key role in procuring for the Olympics, and they had developed a plan in partnership with hospitals, the School Food Plan and LEON that would make procurement simpler and standardised for procurers and SMEs.

A Plan for Public Procurement was launched in July with the aim of giving the market a clear set of messages in response to the public sector need, as well as making it easier for purchasers to source from local suppliers and support the farming sector. It will encourage a more visible supply chain.

The desire is to create an expectation around public procurement where excellence is the norm. Public authorities are expected to source healthier and tastier food. Procurers can use the new scorecard as a tendering or contract management tool.

The balanced scorecard measures on a scale of satisfactory to excellent against five headings; supply chain management, health and wellbeing, resource efficiency, social – economic value, quality of service. The headings examine aspects including animal welfare, fair-trade, energy management, authenticity and traceability as well as variety, seasonality, taste and visual appeal.

DeSouza said DEFRA would support pilot schemes and frontrunners who were willing to trial the new tools and protocols. Those using the tool as a procurement portal would have access to centralised contracts in the Crown Commercial Service.

Jo Marshall, Commercial Director, YPO
YPO (formerly Yorkshire Purchasing Organisation) is a LACA partner and the largest public sector buying organisation in the UK. Marshall gave delegates an overview of the company’s work.

The not-for-profit company has 13 local authority owners and a 40 year trading history providing direct deliveries of food to schools, hospitals and prisons predominantly along the M6 corridor. They have delivered £31m back to the public purse via a school loyalty scheme and dividends.

Their core business is schools and Marshall shared YPO’s experience in finding solutions to issues, putting frameworks in place, and having good contract management to ensure things continue to run smoothly for their customers during UIFSM.

During a challenging time for the sector, YPO has been helping its customers by ensuring they’re getting the best from their suppliers. They set up partnership arrangements and predicted the needs of their customers even before the schools knew themselves. Realising that some schools would be late to order additional furniture and items to meet the needs of UIFSM, YPO took the commercial risk of ordering more than their customer survey had suggested.

They work with the Children’s Food Trust to understand what makes an appealing lunchtime environment, and pass the knowledge onto customers, offering a free space design service. They have flexibility to modify contracts to suit individual customers’ needs. Existing frameworks and tenders are available, and YPO takes the place of in-house procurement staff to ensure best value for money. They remain SME and customer focussed, even working across energy contracts.

Michael Hales, London Borough of Tower Hamlets
Concluding the day, Hales spoke to delegates who had met the target of providing UIFSM for the first six weeks of the school year, by explaining how and why Tower Hamlets has decided to provide UFSM to all primary school children.

Tower Hamlets is the second most densely populated borough in London, with a predominantly young population, high entitlement to free school meals and a large ethnic community. There is an obesity problem among the children.

When the council amalgamated with the PCT, the health of the community became a key focus. The amalgamation generated efficiency savings. The council is using this money to fund several school meal based initiatives to help improve the health of children.

As well as supplying free school meals to all primary children, schools are adopting family service, they are investing in better dining facilities, trialling a cafe concept for sixth formers, initiating a healthy families programme and Cook for Life lessons, and offering more healthy options for girls.

The council is improving the local environment to make physical activity and cycling more feasible, and offering guidance on packed lunch policies.

Meal uptake has risen from 66% to 81%, and children are trying more and wasting less food. Some schools have changed their lunch periods and supervision levels with teachers eating at the table with children. Final figures are due back soon, but early indicators are that the scheme is proving highly successful.