Public Servant Lifestyle

A major review is underway into how food and catering services are purchased by government, its agencies, and schools, hospitals, prisons and local authorities.

The review, by public sector caterers and buyers, being co-ordinated by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), is looking at issues such as the environmental impact of production and distribution, waste, energy and biodiversity, animal welfare and pesticide use, and nutrition.

It will also examine whether small producers are being given a fair chance to compete for public sector contracts and whether the type of food served can contribute to organisations' wider objectives.

The review involves all public sector purchasers in England, including the National Health Service, which is Europe's biggest public sector purchaser.

The initiative will focus on ensuring:

• Public sector food and catering contracts specify appropriate standards for the food being purchased, including the food production standards - for instance, animal welfare and pesticide use and overall environmental impacts.

• Small and medium-sized suppliers are aware of public sector tendering procedures and are given opportunities to compete

• Food with health benefits is promoted in public sector canteens in line with other government initiatives on nutrition and healthy eating

• Environmental impacts are reduced, the procurement of organic food is promoted and waste reduced

• Supply-side difficulties among UK producers are identified and tackled.

"We must be sure that the food being served up in our hospitals, prisons, schools and canteens meets key government objectives on, for example, nutrition and the environment," says Food and Farming Minister Lord Whitty. "These are quality issues that, with price, must be considered by buyers when looking for value for money.

"Local producers and suppliers - farmers, fishermen and the food processing industry - are well placed to meet sustainability criteria. In the past local, smaller companies have often been by-passed in public procurement and by the big service companies.

"More than £1.8billion is spent in England by public purchasers on food each year and millions of people eat courtesy of the state each day. Up to now, ensuring the sustainability of this food has not been coordinated across government, and individual authorities for the most part have been working on their own initiative. The central delivery plan gives us a framework to co-ordinate the initiative across the public sector.

"Food sustainability is a complex concept. There are many factors involved, for example freshness, nutritional content, production method, animal welfare, energy and pesticide usage. All of these are important."

Sir Don Curry, chairman of the independent Implementation Group overseeing delivery of the Strategy for Sustainable Farming and Food said:"Some schools and hospitals have been doing excellent work on sustainable food procurement. We must ensure that this is normal practice for all procurers.

"There is a real commercial opportunity for the farming industry. However, if our producers are to play their part in this, government and industry must work together to ensure that they can supply enough fresh and wholesome produce at the right price.

"Providing good quality, nutritional food can also help deliver key objectives in health, educational and behavioural terms. It's not only staff that work better after a decent lunch - youngsters can learn better, patients recover quicker and, as research suggests, prisoners are less anti-social."

Jonathon Porritt, UK Sustainable Development Commission chairman, adds: "This is an excellent step forward. Buying food isn't just about buying as cheaply as possible, it's about looking at where and how food has been produced, and what the full impacts have been, on the environment and on individual producers.

"The public sector has huge spending power - the NHS alone spends £500million a year on food. That money should, and must, be used to support high environmental standards and viable livelihoods, and promote health and sustainable development. So it is great to see Defra promoting sustainable food purchasing throughout central and local government."

Defra has produced a delivery plan in consultation with other public sector bodies, and each government department has an action plan with a checklist to chart progress towards meeting the initiative's objectives. The Improvement and Development Agency is working with the Local Government Association on sustainable food purchasing guidance.

The initiative is part of the government's Strategy for Sustainable Farming and Food and will feed into the Framework for Sustainable Development on the Government Estate. It will work within UK policy and the EC Treaty, and EU rules on public procurement.

The initiative - see guidance, case studies and information - complements a wider programme to improve sustainable procurement in the public sector, which will be rolled out this autumn.

More information available in Incentives & Rewards