Walsall school meals award quashed

Walsall dinner ladies have won a High Court victory in a row over the privatisation of a council's school dinners and meals on wheels services. Mr Justice Harrison today yesterday overturned the award of the catering contract to Martins of Oswestry in Shropshire because parent governors had been excluded from voting on the awarding of the contract in February, which had resulted in an 11-9 vote in favour. He quashed the original decision, saying: "The contract between the council and Martins is void and of no effect." Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council must now reconsider the decision, although it has vowed to appeal. The T&G union, which represented half of the 600 mostly female catering staff, had argued that the exclusion of three parent governors from voting on the contract this February had been illegitimate. Mr Justice Harrison said the evidence was that the parent governors would have voted to keep the services in-house and that, if they had been allowed to vote, the decision would have been different. He added that two church representatives also excluded would have abstained from voting. The union also said that the Walsall workers had been worried tenders - had been the subject of a bitter dispute in the East Riding of Yorkshire after it won a similar contract and then tried to change staff's terms and conditions. The council had argued that privatisation had been the only viable option for its loss-making catering operation, that the parent governors were not elected members, and that budgetary crises did not fall within their remits.