A loaf and a block of cheese is not lunch for ten days THREAD 2

[ZazieSheHer]

A loaf and a block of cheese is not lunch for ten days ORIGINAL THREAD

@GlobeUs

The government came up with this replacement scheme. Therefore they are responsible for its failures

I don't actually agree with this, and I despite the Government.

A scheme had to be devised due to lockdown. It was contracted out in a tendered process, which may or may not have been fair (we don't know how that bidding worked in reality so let's assume the process was fair).

In any other situation if a contractor doesn't perform after a fair tendering process has been carried out, then it is the fault of the contractor who agreed to provide the services. Chartwells have demonstrated they can perform previously so the government were not aware there was going to be an issue if the contract was awarded to them (it's not like th GS4 contracts where there have been multiple issues and the contracts still get bloody awarded to them). As far as I can see there's nothing in the past that has suggested there was going to be a major issue with this.

Happy to be corrected on past issues though...

There are posts on the other thread about issues with chartwells.

I personally think the government knew fine rightly what would happen , but I don't agree with your position.

In a restaurant , if the food is off or not fit for purpose , do you think the restaurant just says oops oh well we won't tell the suppliers that we had a contract with , how could they have known ? Silly us.

No. they take it up with the people they made the contract with.

The government made the contract with the suppliers after changing from vouchers (don't get me started ) and they ultimately caused this.

The fact the man was a Tory donor must have been a happy coincidence.

If this was happening in something that affected people directly and not faceless nameless weans there would be uproar and less quibbling about what David Lammy did or didn't tweet.

In a restaurant , if the food is off or not fit for purpose , do you think the restaurant just says oops oh well we won't tell the suppliers that we had a contract with , how could they have known ? Silly us.

If the food is off - the restaurant goes to the suppliers; that is who they have the contract with. They don't go take fault out on head office who made the contract - the issue is with the suppliers.

@wheresmykimchi
You only seem to care about facts when they back up your hysterical rhetoric.
You couldn't give a rats backside about facts when they don't fit into your narrative.
You don't care about politics but state only a Tory would support the food parcels.
You brush aside David Lammy's ridiculous Tweet yet harrangue posters who make comparible errors.
Every time a poster asks a difgicukt question, you head them off with emotive drama about starving weans.
Why can't you debate sensibly?

The government chose not to go back to the voucher scheme. So this is 100% their responsibility.

As for fair tendering - we all know that there was no fair tendering for PPE contracts or for Test and Trace contracts - these were handed to Tory cronies. Why would anyone rational assume this one was any different? These people have form.

I've been thinking about this further.

Without a doubt, as said, some children usually have their only meal at school and their family don't feed them unfortunately. These are extreme cases and sadly there are lots of them. This situation though is beyond a money issue. Parents who do not feed their children any meals a day are essentially negligent. Chances are, if they have £15 a week, they will remain negligent because the lack of feeding their kids is beyond money. Receiving lunch and possibly breakfast when at school is good because the kids actually get food. Food parcels mean food is in the house and although it might need preparing, there is actually food.

More people who receive free school meals do feed their kids when they're not at school. They might struggle financially and one less meal or a main meal they don't have to find is really helpful. The vouchers will allow them to keep their kids fed as they have before.

The trouble is, there are children who fall into both categories. When children aren't in school some probably won't get fed even if vouchers are provided and sometimes even if food is provided direct. These seem like social service issues to me and often they are already involved but not always.

I do t know what the answer is. But for kids whose families in normal circumstances don't feed them at all..I really don't think vouchers will be the answer, even if they are for lots of money. The issues are so much bigger.

@GlobeUs

In a restaurant , if the food is off or not fit for purpose , do you think the restaurant just says oops oh well we won't tell the suppliers that we had a contract with , how could they have known ? Silly us.

If the food is off - the restaurant goes to the suppliers; that is who they have the contract with. They don't go take fault out on head office who made the contract - the issue is with the suppliers.

Youd blame the whole process, surely (particularly if you knew the contract was given because Tony in veg is a funder of the boys club that Kev in head office is in).

These caterers have profiteered off this government contract and should be deeply ashamed of their unscrupulous business practices. It would be interesting to see how their project was run, from an outsiders perspective it looks like they let a bunch of people loose on a food warehouse with the instruction to grab £5 worth of produce and send it to people.
Surely meal plans would be drawn up which balance nutritional requirements, stuff children like, ease of actually making a lunch with the products etc. Surely a catering company has economies of scale as a business so whereas we might pay £1 for a yogurt, they would pay significantly less.
I honestly feel I could deliver 5 better lunches for £15 from Waitrose!
The project manager should be fired for incompetence

*I agree wombat.

But we have had marvellous posts from teachers upthread who see this first hand (not me, I just rant)

I don't understand why people are so pigheaded and stubborn about an issue they know nothing about. If people don't know that some children have this as their only meal, why on earth are they defending the government in a policy they clearly know nothing about?

It is not the job of the schools or the parents to educate people on child poverty. It is the job of people to listen and read and understand first hand experiences not prattle on about government guidelines*

I so agree with this. Threads like this often appear on MN whenever something about school children being inadequately fed hits the news. I was on a previous one and there were posters arguing with complete confidence that almost no children went to school hungry, and therefore they couldn't understand that there were resources or charities dedicated to supplying breakfast to children.

It's amazing how out of touch people can be and my mind truly boggles at people who cannot see outside the realms of their own personal experience.

the company that put the packs together are on Marcus Rashford's fight poverty team (or whatever its called).

They made the statement that it wasn't a £30 box - it was charged out at £10.50 which is closer to reasonable for what was sent (plus some logistics costs).
There was just enough in there for lunches for 10 days for one child (there was more than bread n cheese as originally mentioned).

My concern would be the assumption that everyone can keep the food fresh for that long...
but the company implied that they hadn't charged the £30 only £10.50 which makes me think that somebody is pocketing that in 'management or facilitating' fees within government itself!

@WombatChocolate I've thought about this too...but in instances that you do have negligent parents, raw ingredients are not the solution. A potato & a carrot stub is extremely unhelpful. Only someone with salt, pepper, condiments, a working kitchen and utensils can do anything with raw fruit & veg

[quote Katyppp]@wheresmykimchi
You only seem to care about facts when they back up your hysterical rhetoric.
You couldn't give a rats backside about facts when they don't fit into your narrative.
You don't care about politics but state only a Tory would support the food parcels.
You brush aside David Lammy's ridiculous Tweet yet harrangue posters who make comparible errors.
Every time a poster asks a difgicukt question, you head them off with emotive drama about starving weans.
Why can't you debate sensibly?[/quote]
Hysterical? No I'm angry. Irate in fact.

Quote me where I said only a Tory would support the food parcels. Outright lie.

I have no interest in what David Lammy said. Totally off topic, which is the response I give to posters who quibble about five or ten days. Correcting a poster (not haranguing) who repeatedly claims this is just a childs lunch is very different to bogging myself down with what David did or didn't say about Finland which is nothing to do with anything.

My emotive drama is the real world.

Debate sensibly? Coming from you? I know what I'm talking about I see it first hand. You have been challenged by a number of posters who have also seen it first hand and you swerve their (easy, nor difficult questions) with posts of no substance where you quibble about the validity of tweets.

I'm proud of my narrative and I'd rather be me than you popping up every so often to prattle aimlessly to try and give the impression we are all talking rubbish by needling about tweets....every day of the week.

And @Katyppp the fact you refer to my defence of real life children based on my real life experience (and get wounded when people.criticise the Tories ) tells me everything I need to know about you.

Refer to it as 'emotive drama ' - sorry Katy missed that out

@pointythings

The government chose not to go back to the voucher scheme. So this is 100% their responsibility.

As for fair tendering - we all know that there was no fair tendering for PPE contracts or for Test and Trace contracts - these were handed to Tory cronies. Why would anyone rational assume this one was any different? These people have form.

There wasn't any tendering because schools were asked to get the caterers they were already using to provide food for for the FSM children as the contracts for the term had already been paid. Now that vouchers are being issued instead, the taxpayer is paying twice for the FSM lunches. The catering companies won't have to provide as much food, so will be profiting more.

The “emotive drama” and “hysterical rhetoric” only seem to have one source as far as I can see.

Paquerette and that too was a failure of government, because this second lockdown was always on the cards. It should have been planned for, just as substitute exams should have been planned for. The moment things started going wrong in late October, the decision to go back to the voucher scheme in the event of a second national lockdown should have been taken, with catering firms put under furlough rules just like everyone else.

Everything about this government and COVID has been fail to plan, plan to fail.

@VinylDetective

The “emotive drama” and “hysterical rhetoric” only seem to have one source as far as I can see.

Quite .

It's a shame the other thread has closed so I couldn't quote the many belters on there about the 'real scandal' being people accepting free food, no one being too poor to feed their kids and a long flippant list of all the requirements apparently requested by FSM kids and how nothing is ever good enough.

'There wasn't any tendering because schools were asked to get the caterers they were already using to provide food for for the FSM children as the contracts for the term had already been paid.'

Yes I can't quite understand how this can possibly be 'the Tories' fault surely it is a failure at dare I say it, school level? The money was made available all they had to do was organise it and check the content. I know Teachers are busy but surely someone from the catering dep could have been responsible to check content?

Anyone would think Johnson had chosen the meagre supplies himself. That been said there has been lots of excitement on sm about 'feeding a family' for a week, no it is meant to provide 5 lunches for a dc. They should ask Tescos to send them meal deals. Cheaper.

Let's try and think about this without judgement for the parents for a moment, because frankly, I've seen too much of the "will buy alcohol and fags and parents chose to have kids" .and honestly it disgusts me more than a little bit.

Many of us on this site are parents, and as such I am deeply saddened and really concerned that in the middle of a pandemic this is how some of the most vulnerable in our society are treated.
Some of these children are so vulnerable that their only option for food is these parcels, some children's parcels are being delivered in black bin bags for heavens sake.

I don't care why, but I do care that there are children who are in this situation. Most of these parcels are unnecessarily mean and its humiliating to provide people food in black bin liners.

I really wish that things were different. Its such a tough time and I feel sick to know there are so many vulnerable people being treated so poorly.

Trousering = torysering

'Everything about this government and COVID has been fail to plan, plan to fail.'

Oh I dont know, highest testing in Europe www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ and also the vaccine distribution for example is very successful. Best in Europe by a long shot. Have you not seen the news recently?

@GetOffYourHighHorse

'There wasn't any tendering because schools were asked to get the caterers they were already using to provide food for for the FSM children as the contracts for the term had already been paid.'

Yes I can't quite understand how this can possibly be 'the Tories' fault surely it is a failure at dare I say it, school level? The money was made available all they had to do was organise it and check the content. I know Teachers are busy but surely someone from the catering dep could have been responsible to check content?

Anyone would think Johnson had chosen the meagre supplies himself. That been said there has been lots of excitement on sm about 'feeding a family' for a week, no it is meant to provide 5 lunches for a dc. They should ask Tescos to send them meal deals. Cheaper.

After the vouchers were pulled with zero notice and when the service had already been paid for, it is reasonable for schools to expect their pupils to be provided with meals in-line with government guidelines.

The fault of this lies squarely at the door of Chartwells.

'There wasn't any tendering because schools were asked to get the caterers they were already using to provide food for for the FSM children as the contracts for the term had already been paid.'

Oh wow, I totally did not know this - I thought that it was a unilateral (in England at least) contract that had been tendered for and won by Chartwell's?

@notafanoftheman

Trousering = torysering

Yes quite

Horse well, Israel is doing better in vaccination rates. UK doing well in death rates, though. And testing may be pretty good now, but UK had a worse start than most. Furlough - no long term planning at all, unlike Germany. Exam planning - well, no plans at all, just making it up as we go along. Still, you are clearly a big fan of this government so crack on.

I work in the NHS and am currently project managing the creation of three extra COVID wards, which we need preferably yesterday, so forgive me for feeling a bit jaded.