Will Quince MP concluded that buying standards should be consistently applied and properly enforced if benefits are to be realised. By Nick Hughes.
Will Quince has called for a single set of buying standards to be mandated across the public sector in his independent review into public food procurement.
The Conservative MP, who is not standing for re-election in July, was commissioned by Defra secretary of state Steve Barclay in March to look at ways to promote high standards for food and catering services and make public sector supply chains more accessible to small-and-medium sized businesses (SMEs) and farmers.
Quince published his rapid review independently last week since government communications are currently restricted during the purdah period. The review does not discuss buying standards themselves – the subject of a 2022 government consultation which is still awaiting a response – but rather how standards can be more effectively applied across the public sector.
In reaching his conclusions, the former Britvic employee spoke to public sector procurement professionals and government departments and reviewed procurement processes and international case studies. He also considered research commissioned by Defra into procurement decision making carried out by the consultancy KPMG.
Although it is questionable how much weight Quince’s findings will carry given his departure from the House of Commons and expectations of a new Labour-led government, his insights add to a growing body of evidence that public procurement is an underutilised tool for improving food standards and tackling environmental issues like climate change.
Here are his key findings:
Standards should be consistently applied and properly enforced. The government buying standards for food and catering services (GBSF) set standards for the quality of food served in the public sector but they are only mandatory for central government departments, NHS hospitals, the armed forces and the prison and probation service, and not for other public sector organisations like schools, colleges and local authority care homes which between them account for £3.7bn of the £5bn spent annually on public sector food, according to the review. Quince found that standards haven’t been properly monitored since they were introduced in 2011 meaning there is little evidence of their effectiveness or whether they are even being followed where they apply. Although his review found high level awareness of the GBSF, it identified “systemic barriers to compliance” and a “lack of clarity on expectations”, with the picture blurred by “different sets of standards applying to or available across the public sector”. He called on the government to unify and mandate standards across the entire public sector with exemptions where necessary, for instance where specific nutritional requirements need to be met. He also called for metrics to be developed against which government can assess compliance, including centralised data monitoring and clear reporting structures.
Public bodies should embrace best practice. Quince was effusive in his praise for the Soil Association’s ‘Food for life served here’ (FFLSH) accreditation scheme, which sets standards for healthy, sustainable eating and has been adopted widely across the school and hospital sectors. The review said as a bridge to greater compliance with the GBSF, the government should encourage public sector organisations, and in particular schools, to embrace innovation and non-mandatory best practice like FFLSH accreditation, and provide financial support for them to do so.
Public contracts should be more accessible. The review found that SMEs and farmers find it complex and costly to access public sector contracts with barriers including an inability to provide the large or consistent quantities of food required to meet contractual obligations. Quince described this as a “missed opportunity to share the benefits and opportunities of public procurement with a wider range of businesses” and recommended that the government encourages flexibility and accessibility within procurement systems for both SMEs and farmers, and procurers. That includes embracing dynamic purchasing systems that break down large contracts into smaller, more manageable chunks, which small suppliers can more easily bid to fulfil. The government should also provide £1-2m of grant funding to facilitate local collaborations between farmers and procurers, which could cover costs for the infrastructure and training needed to create new local supply chains.
The system needs more funding. On the subject of money, Quince acknowledged that buying food that meets government standards could increase costs at a time when the public sector is operating within funding constraints and dealing with food inflation and other cost of living increases. He noted that if the free school meal allowance set in 2014 had kept pace with inflation, it would now be over £3.00 rather than the current £2.53 and found evidence that schools have lowered the quality of the food they serve as a result. He recommended that school food budgets are ring-fenced and that the free school meal allowance is increased to reflect inflationary pressures.
Government should respond to its own consultation. It’s been almost two years since the government consulted on changes to public sector food procurement standards, including a proposal for 50% of spend to go on food produced locally or certified to higher environmental production standards. Quince said the government should publish its consultation response without delay, albeit that won’t happen with an election imminent. Still, with Labour also having pledged to reform public sector food, Quince’s review strengthens the case for decisive action in the next parliament.
