What an exciting start to the first-ever ASSIST FM Cleaning Scholarship! Last week our inaugural group of 18 scholars, representing 18 different Scottish Local Authorities, gathered for their first session, kindly hosted by Scotland Excel at Renfrewshire House in Paisley.

The session opened with a warm welcome from Chris Ross, Chair of ASSIST FM, who emphasised the need for this scholarship following the success of the HITS scholarship programme. Recognising the importance of extending such opportunities to the cleaning sector of FM Services, the Cleaning with Class group partnered with the British Institute of Cleaning Science (BICSc) and We Are Extraordinary Training to design a bespoke training programme. This programme offers a blend of in-person and online sessions tailored to meet the current challenges in Local Authority Cleaning Services.

Denise Hanson, Commercial Director at BICSc, started the day by outlining the key elements of the BICSc training. She guided the group through signing up to the BICSc community and online learning platform, and distributed valuable training resources to help them on their journey.

In the afternoon, Lisa Rogers, Director of Growth Development, led two leadership sessions. The first focused on understanding personal leadership styles, while the second explored how to motivate teams and foster employee engagement

This scholarship has been made possible thanks to the generous support of our fantastic cleaning suppliers, including Alliance Local, Unico Direct, Instock, Bunzl, Arrow County Supplies, and GMC Corsehill.

We wish our 18 scholars the best of luck as they embark on this rewarding training journey!

International School Meals Day: the caterer innovations that have made Scottish school meals better 

This International School Meals Day, Food for Life Scotland and ASSIST FM are celebrating the inspiring innovation of Scotland’s school caterers, who, despite external pressures, work tirelessly every day to provide a high quality, nutritionally balanced and sustainably sourced school meal.  

Around 450,000 meals are served every day across Scotland’s 32 Local Authorities. In 15 local authorities, those meals meet the Food for Life Served Here award standards at either Bronze, Silver or Gold. The award has a long history in Scotland, with the first Scottish local authority – East Ayrshire – receiving the certification in 2008.  

Across the school meals sector, caterers continue to evolve and innovate – providing services well beyond a meal on a plate!  

Good food on school meal plates 

• Scotland has the most stringent school food standards of any UK nation. The Nutritional Requirements for Food and Drink in Schools (2020) sets out the amount of salt, sugars and fats recommended in school meals along with building on a health promoting culture with the school community.  
   
• The amount of Scottish produce featured on school meals continues to grow year on year, with all local authorities building strong relationships with both local and national suppliers to provide the highest quality produce to pupils. 
   

• Many school caterers and local authority catering teams in Scotland show their commitment to fresh, local and sustainable school food by achieving the Food for Life Served Here award at Bronze, Silver or Gold. A Food for Life Served Here award is a nationally recognised mark of quality.  
   
  If you see a Food for Life Served Here logo you know that the majority of the food on the menu will be freshly prepared, and it will always be free from undesirable trans fats, sweeteners, and additives. Caterers making Food for Life Served Here-certified meals use free-range eggs and farm assured meat that can be traced back to the source, as well as ingredients from sustainable and ethical sources. 

• Through Universal Free School Meals (P1-P5), caterers have been working hard to deliver even more lunches than ever before to Scottish pupils, ensuring a wide and varied choice is available to schools and building life and social skills through shared dining. Caterers use pupil and parental feedback to help shape services for many years to come.  
   
• Local authorities are finding innovative ways to include more organic produce on school meals menus. FFLSH Gold award holder East Ayrshire Council’s partnership with local organic farm Mossgiel Farm not only means that primary school pupils in East Ayrshire receive local, organic milk, but also involves an innovative approach to reducing waste, with milk dispensers installed in schools reducing the need for plastic containers. 
   
• East Lothian Council achieved the FFLSH Silver award by buying organic flour from Mungoswells Malt and Milling, based in Drem East Lothian. The catering team balanced the cost by working with the Food for Life Scotland team to make savings in other areas of the menu. This fantastic example of innovation shows what’s possible in delivering great Scottish school food that supports health, the environment and the local economy.  

The role of the Caterer 

• Catering teams are an integral part of the whole school approach to health and wellbeing. They are at the front line, ensuring that our children and young people are given the right facts and information on the importance of making positive food and drink choices as they develop and grow. School catering teams are some of the most passionate in the hospitality industry, many of them spending their entire careers devoted to public service.  

• For many school pupils, their school meal could be the only hot meal they have that day. School caterers take this responsibility seriously, finding ways to support every pupil that uses their school meals service. In Food for Life Served Here Bronze award holder Inverclyde, for example, nursery staff at Newark Primary School provide a table setting for each of their nursery pupils each lunchtime. They decorate the table with a vase and artificial flowers and sit with the children, who enjoy the meal together. For many pupils, their main opportunity to share a meal in this way is at school. 
   
• The schools catering service does not simply end at lunchtime. It contributes in numerous less visible ways to the local community. Local Authority caterers are proud to support local suppliers. They also contribute to the creation of local employment and community wealth building – research shows for every £1 spent on school meals a minimum of £3 is returned to the local community, while every £1 invested in Food for Life brings a social return on investment of £4.41. 
   

New ideas 

• Technology now forms a large part of school meals services, keeping them sustainable and agile – systems such as online ordering, cashless catering and pre-ordering in both high schools and primary schools, helps to reduce waste and removes stigma from the lunch service. Modern cooking technology is used in kitchens to create healthier recipes. And Food for Life Served Here Bronze award holder Argyll and Bute Council have even trialled using drones to deliver school meals to its island-based schools.  
   
• Caterers work closely with suppliers to innovate and adapt products.  All local authorities are continually looking at removing packaging waste (for example by using re-usable vegetable crates or swapping to cornstarch veg netting). And caterers are innovating and adapting with the recipes themselves. Caterers serving FFLSH meals served farm assured meat, which may cost more – so they take a less but better meat approach to their school meals menu, working closely with the FFLS menu and catering skills team to adapt dishes by removing some of the meat and replacing it with things like pulses. Costs are reduced while dishes remain fresh, nutritious – and delicious!  
   
• The service has a wider role in supporting positive community benefits such as supporting school growing projects, working with schools, teaching pupils culinary skills and food provenance, supporting the local community through food larders and skills training hubs and working out with term time to support holiday clubs and activity programmes. For example, in Stirling – which holds the FFLSH Silver award – caterers at Dunblane Primary School run a Chef’s Apprentice Programme, bringing P6 pupils into the kitchen to learn skills including fresh food preparation and baking.  

Hands on Hungry Blog by Chairperson Sheryl McKiddie, Food & Nutrition Manager, Tayside Contracts

We can’t believe we are three months into another year already, 2023 was a quick year but Hands on Hungry still managed to sink their teeth into meaningful engagements both as a group and with external stakeholders such as ProVeg, Quality Meat Scotland and the Health & Nutrition Inspection Team. 

The highlights for 2023 were:

• HNI Q&A Session which I think and hope all that attended found useful and now we plan to make this a regular thing I think it will be beneficial to how we move forward in terms of working in partnership with the HNI team. 
• Bringing together 2 sub-groups to pull together a HNI Catering Guide to support our catering colleagues in knowing what to expect when they are being inspected and some using hints and tips to aid them along the way so watch this space for this coming out!
• Forecasting session with Brakes, Green Gourmet & Quorn – Forecasting volumes and managing the timescales with menu changes is always a challenge so this session allowed our members to ask the nitty gritty on what the suppliers and manufacturers expectations are and where we go moving forward. I for one have welcomed this new knowledge and know my team will find the supporting tools provided of great benefit!
• Hot topics of the year has definitely been HNI & Adapted Menus/Special Dietary Requirements. 
• Quarterly Meetings – Our meetings have been well attended with great discussion and sharing of problems as well as solutions. Our guest speakers in 2023 included:
• Quality Meat Scotland
• ProVeg
• HNI Team

Priorities for 2024:

• Continue sharing best practices
• Continue work with national menu template
• Continue work with HNI Inspections
• Feed into specialist menus group and help establish best practise guidelines for all

Cleaning with Class

Blog by Chairperson, Anne Goldie

Facilities Services Manager, South Lanarkshire Council

The Cleaning with Class Group had a very busy 2023 and has a lot of momentum and excitement going forward in 2024. Memberships increased and therefore, attendance at the quarterly meetings did also, which meant that all of our meetings were super beneficial and extremely informative. 

The highlights for 2023 were:

Cleaning with Class were finalists in the European Cleaning And Hygiene Awards 2023 in the category “Best Initiative Raising the Profile of the Cleaning Sector”. 

It was an honour to attend the glittering awards ceremony which took place in the beautiful Mansion House in Dublin on 5th October 2023.

Although we did not lift the trophy this year it was a massive achievement to reach the final as the awards received a record number of entries. The judges reviewed over 230 nominations with 49 finalists across 10 categories. 

See more details of the winners and finalists in the link below:

Awards | European Cleaning And Hygiene Awards (echawards.com)

• Attendance at the UK’s premier cleaning and hygiene event “Cleaning Show 2023” in Excel in London in March 2023. The show was packed with business opportunities, innovative products, industry speakers and over 70 exhibitors. This gives a great opportunity to network and share ideas with the group.

• Journey to Cobotics/Robotics – Highland Council – inspiration for our Local Authorities to follow.

Quarterly Meetings – Our meetings have been well attended with great discussion and sharing of problems as well as solutions. Our guest speakers in 2023 included :

• • Sandra Williamson – REHIS
  • Angie McCarty – Scotland Excel
  • David Harkness – Benefits – South Lanarkshire Council ( Autumn Seminar)
  • As well as our many members who have presented throughout the year!

ASSIST FM members can access the meeting minutes over on the Resource Site. 

Priorities for 2024:

• Continue to grow Cleaning & FM services Profile 
• Establish a Data Collection/Sharing Group
• Attend Cleaning Show – 2024 Manchester Cleaning Show register now
• Continue to share best practices and collectively work together to find solutions