SMART PROCUREMENT STRATEGIES
Smart procurement: is it time to move to in-house catering?
Education Today hears from HAYDEN HIBBERT, allmanhall’s Client Relations Director, and former head of catering for a group of international schools.
T
he late Paul Prudhomme observed: “You don’t need a silver fork to eat good food”. This may be true, but it is highly likely that a school does need a good catering team to produce good food for their pupils! Then comes the question of whether to outsource catering or to manage in-house… Key reasons for considering in-house are control and cost. In this climate of extreme financial pressures, schools need to be agile, lean and to deliver the best food offer they can, ensuring they are receiving value for money – a challenge when these significant costs are nebulous. One of the first considerations is bound to be labour costs. The October 2024 budget increased the National Minimum Wage to £12.21 per hour for adults over 21. This 6.7% rise comes into effect in April 2025 and particularly impacts those sectors heavily reliant on minimum wage workers, such as catering. Food production and supply is impacted, too.
The budget also introduced a 1.2% increase in employer National Insurance Contributions (NICs), raising the rate to 15% starting from April 2025. Additionally, the NIC threshold will be lowered from £9,100 to £5,000 per year. This change in NICs means that all employers will face higher costs.
Schools may be really tempted to outsource their catering operation, to achieve a favourable impact on the school’s or trust’s own payroll costs. But the hike in the cost of employing someone will still be felt via a contract catering option... the payroll overhead will be passed on by the catering contractor, but with the added cost of management fees or other earning arrangement (addressed in greater detail later on). Oversetting staffing costs may not be the only motivation for appointing a contractor though. Outsourcing the administrative burden
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www.education-today.co.uk March 2025
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