Dorset Council Meeting Discusses School Meal Chaos

17 October 2014, 06:15 | Updated: 17 October 2014, 06:19

A catering firm - which failed to deliver free hot meals to dozens of Dorset schools - is being warned it faces legal action if there are more problems in future.

A County Council scrutiny meeting yesterday (Thursday 16 October) looked at how to solve the issues Chartwells has had this term, following a fire at it's kitchen in Ferndown over the summer and technical problems with a temporary facility.

The company's said sorry and that it'll reimburse schools who had to buy things like sandwiches and pizzas in to feed pupils.

A Chartwells statement following the meeting said:

'We would like to thank Dorset County Council for giving us the opportunity to attend today’s meeting and we will consider the committee’s recommendations very carefully. We take our commitment to service delivery very seriously and regret the concern and inconvenience which has been caused to schools, pupils and their parents.
 
'The disruption to the service was caused by a fire at our Ferndown kitchen facility, which was compounded by several unexpected technical issues at our temporary replacement facility in Bovington. This caused some challenges in the delivery of meals to a number of schools at the start of term. We are now delivering a consistent service to all schools and, from 3 November, we will resume a hot meal service to those 23 schools that have been receiving packed lunches on a temporary basis.
 
'We have apologised to those affected and will reimburse them fully. Our priority remains to ensure we deliver the highest quality service to schools in Dorset and we will continue to keep the Councils, schools and parents updated.'