A lot of people have been working long and hard to improve the quality of institutional food, especially in rural areas of Britain. It's finally beginning to pay off - a few councils in Wales have already made big changes to the menus in schools and banned junk food dispensers. It would be a pity of Jamie Oliver got the lion's share of the credit just because he's a media darling.

sian, west wales


My partner has been fighting this battle in the North East for some years and has made great strides in improving the situation in many dining halls. The issue isn't only the content of the plate but there's also the question of getting sufficient numbers of kids to stay in school during lunchtimes.
Without the support of the parents many of these kids are going to turn their noses up at what's offered and wander down to the local "chippy", cigarette in hand, for a chip bun.
Money needs to be spent on the facilities as well as on the food and the whole thing needs to be sold to a difficult market.
I'm not criticising Jamie Oliver at all, I think he's one of the good guys, but securing the funding to put healthier food on the plates is only one aspect of the problem. There's a whole generation of junk-fooders to re-educate, many of whom aren't remotely interested in this debate.
It seems that there has been some "spin" on this £220 million of extra funding promised by Tony Blair. The claim by education secretary Ruth Kelly that this is "new money" turns out to be not the case, this money is to be "found" from the existing education budget, which adds to the feeling that Blair is simply making political gain on the back of this issue without putting in any real substance.

C-flat.