7. What financial assessment has the Minister made of local authorities' approach to investing in school catering? OQ58952

Two hundred and sixty million pounds has been committed to implement the universal free school meal provision programme over the next three years. I anticipate that this funding will be sufficient for the majority of local authorities, but have committed that any additional requirements will be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

Thank you very much for that reply, which is extremely useful to clarify that. I just wondered if I could probe you on what financial assessment you may have done on the different models that local authorities are using, as the rise in food prices is far higher than the 1.65 uplift local authority budgets are getting in total, and there's also a world shortage of chefs, not just in schools, but in restaurants and cafes across the UK.

There seem to be three main models of delivery. Ynys Môn, maybe among others, have outsourced their catering provision to private contractors. Most local authorities rely on in-house caterers and cooking our expanding primary school meal service in school kitchens, which often involves capital to refurbish kitchens that are no longer fit for purpose for our expanding meal service. The third model, in Flintshire, is exploring advanced discussions with a social enterprise about a third option, of cooking the main meal centrally, sometimes known as cook-chill, with final preparation of food that doesn't need to be cooked, like fruit and salad, done in individual schools, prepared by the kitchen assistants who are going to dish out the meals anyway. How much of this presupposes the individual kitchen model, and how much of it is looking at the cost of having meals prepared centrally, at least while we have such a crisis in the provision of chefs?

Thank you very much for that question. I can say that Welsh Treasury officials are part of the working group that has been established to take forward the review of the unit rate. Obviously, it's not straightforward, and they will be looking at the impacts of those different models in terms of agreeing the rate. At the moment, the current free school meal unit rate across local authorities is being looked at alongside the evidence of the rising costs and the expectation that we're putting on local authorities in respect of sourcing local ingredients. Obviously, they're exploring the sustainability of the offer. I'm sure that part of that work will include exploring the different models of delivery, looking to see which delivers best value for money, and looking to see which delivers on those wider socioeconomic and environmental goals that we have. Perhaps I'll ask the education Minister to provide a letter to the Member with more detail on that. 

And finally, question 8—Heledd Fychan.