Alex wrote:
HARD TO SWALLOW
SANDWICHES are being driven across Lincolnshire every day in taxis paid for by the taxpayer. Drivers are being hired to take packed lunches to schoolchildren who are entitled to free meals.
The Echo can reveal that, until recently, one firm was being paid to transport a single sandwich just two miles to a primary school each day.
The journeys are costing Lincolnshire taxpayers thousands of pounds every year. Lincolnshire County Council claims the bill is just one example of how its school transport costs are spiralling out of control.
Now Councillor Bud Robinson has demanded answers on the use of taxis ahead of urgent talks on the massive £22m bill on home to school and college transport this year.
"I knew of a case where a taxi was taking just one sandwich to a primary school, at a cost of £6 a day," he said.
Coun Robinson, a former taxi driver, said he had been promised a written explanation of the system but, to date, had heard nothing from the council.
"I don't want to deprive anyone of a free school meal but surely there must be a better way than sending sandwiches in taxis," he said.
Parents on income support, jobseeker's allowance or in receipt of child tax credit are entitled to claim free school meals for their children.
But most primary schools do not have their own canteens and are therefore legally required to buy in food.
At lunchtime pupils receive a lunch of sandwiches, a yoghurt, biscuits, a piece of fruit and a drink.
Strict legislation prevents schools from storing the food overnight, meaning daily deliveries are essential.
Malcolm Achille, facilities manager at the council's partner-firm HBS, said schools arranged and paid for their own free meals service.
"The school meal service in primary schools disappeared in 1981 following legislation," he said. "From then to the present day it has been a packed lunch. In some cases we've managed to arrange for the contractors themselves to deliver the lunches daily.
"The Government sets down criteria on the nutritional balance of these meals, which is very clear.
"Some school headteachers do arrange to nip to the local shop to buy the food, others don't. It's up to them."
Bill Sheffield, Lincoln spokesman for the National Union of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers, said: "If a child is entitled to a free school meal then schools must provide it and it's up to them to arrange it.
"I would be against sending teachers out to collect sandwiches because it's not what they've trained for."
The daily school run is already a multi-million pound industry for the county's taxi firms. This year the council has spent £7m paying taxi firms to take pupils door-to-door from their homes to schools and colleges.
That is in addition to a further £15m on bus transportation.
And the bill is estimated to peak at £28m next year - far more than many other education authorities.
I bet Councillor Robinson used to do the contract but lost it?? Thats how it looks to me. Many Councils use Taxis to deliver school meals in rural areas, there is nothing more rural than Lincolnshire.
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