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Cooking up interest

The UK Experience by Malcolm Morley *

All Councils wrestle with getting local people interested in the issues with which they deal. Individuals take an interest in services that directly affect them but generally, unless there is a crisis either through the failure of a service or the threat of withdrawal of a service, most of the public don’t take much interest in Council services.

In England, Councils and their services aren’t seen as very exciting. This is evidenced by the low turnout at local elections and the fall in public satisfaction with Councils. Take for example school lunches. What would it take to get people interested in school lunches?

Not many people have taken an interest in what is served in schools at lunchtimes. It seems that not even children have taken much interest as long as it’s fast and what they want.

They certainly haven’t been clamouring for healthy food. Chips, pizza and other convenience foods have become the staple in many school kitchens. There have always been anecdotes about the quality of school lunches and fads that mean that it’s cool not to be seen having a school lunch. The fact is though that a significant number of children rely on school lunches for their main meal of the day.

In England a school lunch costs pupils an average of £1.60 per day. The food element of this is an average of 37p. The difference is made up of labour and other costs and profit where a private contractor is employed. Contractors complain that they are struggling to make a profit from contracts.

Enter celebrity chef Jamie Oliver.

Celebrity chefs have made a big impact in England and vie for air time on television to let everyone know how to make a difference to their lives through innovative cooking techniques and the combination of new ingredients.Arecommendation from Delia Smith, another well known chef, on a television program can lead to shops being sold out of the item the following day.

Jamie Oliver has turned his attention to school lunches in the London Borough of Greenwich. He set himself the challenge of altering the diets of nearly 30,000 school children on the budget set by the Council. A challenge followed by a television station.

The presence of a celebrity chef and a television crew can do for public interest in school lunches what any amount of policy making and press releases can’t. It can capture the public’s attention and get the issue right up the local and national agendas. Jamie Oliver’s pronouncements on the quality, investment in and the appropriateness of school lunches have hit home with the public.

His alternative menus based upon healthy ingredients have captured the imagination and palates of school children. Newspaper articles have taken up the issues of nutritional standards and the investment in school lunches. All of the main political parties at a national level are now making announcements about school lunches. It seems that the spotlight has been turned on, attention of the general public has been ignited and action is to follow.

The big challenge now is to get celebrities interested in the rest of Council services!

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