Yet, between the years of 1951 and 1970 the Conservative government and Labour government that followed were under increasing pressure to cut public expenditure. This lead to an increase in the price of school meals from 7d in 1953 to 1s 9d in 1969 (Gillard, 2003). It was this sharp increase in the price of school meals that was the beginning of the demise of the ‘nutritional’ school meal programme (Webster, …show more content…
Additionally, in 1986 the Social Security Act was passed which would further limit the entitlement to free school meals to children whose families were in receipt of Income Support (Gustafsson, 2002). As a result, 400,000 children lost their right to free school meals (White, et al., 1992). Furthermore, school meals provision became open to Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT) as part of the 1986 Local Government Act, obliging local authorities to open up the school meals service by allowing other organisations, in addition to the local authority, to tender for the contract (Gordon & Lawton, 2004). Consequently, private companies were now in charge of many school’s provision of meals, and concerned with cutting costs, eliminating waste and maximising profits, resulting in the ‘easy option of providing popular fast-food items such as burgers and chips’ (Coronary Prevention Group, cited in The Guardian, 23 July 1999). During the 1980’s school meals provision was transformed from a free service into a ‘commercial operation driven by market forces’ (Cross & MacDonald, 2009, p. 2). Following the 1980 Education Act and 1986 Local Government Act and coupled with social and technological changes such as increased