• Coming to the end of their existing 4 year contract with a small/ medium catering contractor,
• Service not meeting expectations in quality and fresh food standards,
• Management and communication problems,
• Many ex Council employees, Local Government Pensions, Two tier pay and Union involvement.
• Individual schools unsure if they should stay together as a consortium, continue to sub-contract or move to an in-house service.

Review Consultancy was engaged and completed the following:

• Review each individual school’s catering services, operational standards, financial performance, catering team skills, stakeholder opinions and aspirations.
• Prepare Options Appraisal to support discussion and decision making to determine future catering strategy; to stay as a consortium, continue to sub-contract via a competitive tender, go in-house..
• Full management of a consortium competitive tender, engaging Harrow Legal, Pension and Procurement departments, Unions and all stakeholders from each individual school.

• All schools remained as a consortium to sub-contract to one very experienced company.
• Standards of catering has substantially improved.
• Individual school development plans with contractor investment.
• Construction of an incentivised subsidy reduction scheme based on increasing uptakes.
• Introduction of a consortium wide cashless system.
• New Group Management introduced and a full on-going staff training implemented.