C&K Removal of Food Services

[Whopper]

Received the following email today regarding C&K's recent decision to abolish food services from long day care centres. This decision was handed down to parents just weeks before the end of the year, giving parents no opportunity to provide feedback or consider moving their children elsewhere.

C&K have made communication between child care centres almost impossible. No community vehicle exists to exchange and share information. This thread hopes to rectify this problem. I encourage you to email this link to others so they too can voice their opinions to the C&K community as a whole, without censorship from the central office of C&K.

It should be noted that the number of centres that have been offered food services in the new year as discussed below is yet to be confirmed. C&K have at the time of writing refused to divulge this information.

This is a hotly debated topic and I encourage you all to provide your opinions and thoughts regarding the matter. Comments can be made either anonymously, after signing up via the http://www.brissy.com.au/forum/register.php link, or by signing in using your Facebook account credentials.

C&K Community Childcare Centre parents and staff were recently informed of a unilateral decision by the Board and Management of The Creche and Kindergarten Association of Queensland (C&K) that the superb meal service offered at 19 centres would be discontinued from 1 January 2011.

Despite being a community-based not-for-profit organisation established to provide early childhood education and care services to meet the needs of communities, no consultation was held with the community or parents ahead of this significant change.

Parents are outraged:

(1) that such decisions can be imposed without consultation;

(2) that no reduction in fees will accompany the reduction in services provided;

(3) that C&K can make unilateral decisions which inconvenience parents, apparently to suit the convenience of C&K management;

(4) that the decision to remove food services was made AFTER re-enrolments closed and were confirmed for 2011;

(5) that C&K deceitfully encouraged re-enrolments based upon the existing level of service (including food) and now parents have no alternative but to incur additional costs to provide food.

Parents at four of the effected centres this week won the opportunity to vote on a three month moratorium on the removal of food services (in exchange for an $8/day fee increase) to allow discussions to be held with parent representatives to explore alternatives. Centres which have not bothered to complain will not enjoy any concessions.

We continue to urge C&K's Board and Management to make contact with the Parent Advisory Groups at each of the 19 centres to begin genuine negotiations to resolve this issue.

Parents also seek an undertaking from C&K's Board of Management that future decisions which alter the mix of services provided at C&K child care centres are only made through a rigorous process of consultation with parents.

A Facebook page has been established to gather the support of parents at different centres:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?...7155512&v=wall
A quick look at this page will demonstrate the level of disgust and frustration parents feel.

Recent media attention for this issue can be seen at the following links:

ABC612: http://blogs.abc.net.au/queensland/6...gram=612_drive
Courier-Mail: http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/c...-1225967925018
Courier-Mail: http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/c...-1225972379498

C&K CEO Barrie Elvish has apologised to parents (see ABC612 interview). However, he comments in this interview that having "consultation with parents simply creates expectations" - certainly a strange, but very telling, position to take for an organisation which is ultimately accountable to the community!

We believe that this issue and the way C&K has approached it is a disgrace. C&K enjoys funding and other support from both State and Federal governments because of its community ownership and orientation. Clearly, much of what C&K claim in this regard is a sham; when it comes to the genuine involvement of the community over simple operational decisions, C&K's management have chosen again to ignore and exclude the voice of the community.

C&K's tagline is "where children come first". It appears that this also is mere rhetoric and marketing spin. In this issue, C&K has shown itself to be incompetent and out of touch with community sentiment.

We urge you to contact C&K (07 3552 5333) to find out more about this issue and to join us in condemning C&K for this action.


Sincerely

C&K Parents Voice

CEO Barry Elvish assured the parents who attended the meeting on Tuesday that he would review the financial decision behind the removal of services before anything further was considered. It was concerning that when asked why the Chief Financial Officer had not attended the meeting, it was because he had only started the day before and was not familiar with the situation.

The lack of financial understanding behind the decision process does suggest that the decision has been made as one of convenience to C&K management, rather than an educated, carefully considered one.

It had been said at the meeting and reiterated in the article in The Australian December 16 (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news...-1225971760678) that a cost saving of $350,000 per year overall would be realised if food services were removed from the 19 C&K Childcare centres. That infers that it costs around $18,000 per centre per year to provide food services. As a result of the removal of these services, the financial impact on parents to continue these services would equate to $8/meal x 60 children per centre (on average), x 5 days/week, x 52 weeks/year, across 19 centres.

Annual cost per centre for food services = $124,800
Total annual cost for all parents across all 19 centres = $2,371,200

... and this is for an annual cost saving of $350,000 centrally, with parents now having to make up the shortfall of just over $2 million.

At the meeting, both the CEO Barry Elvish and General Manager Children's Services Mel Comerford had absolutely no idea regarding the financial impact of the decision, only to respond with "we're not financial people" and they would look into it further. As a CEO, I would have hoped he would have familiarised himself with the situation both operationally and financially.

In the email sent to parents Thursday 16 December, General Manager Children's Services Mel Comerford states, “C&K maintains our position that the closure of our child care kitchens will allow C&K to absorb some of the other significant operational increases to electricity, cleaning, building maintenance and staff wages in 2011, rather than pass these increases onto parents.“ I find it difficult to understand how electricity costs will be reduced, when as a result of this exercise at least one additional fridge and a number of microwaves will need to be purchased for every room within the centres. This equipment will take up a significant amount of space and will use electricity inefficiently. Staff wage costs will also increase, due to the fact professionally trained child care staff will be required to reheat lunches, with high risk foods such as spaghetti bolognese requiring at least 2 minutes per child to ensure correct temperatures have been reached. (as per safe food handling requirements). There would also be additional costs incurred for the maintenance of these whitegoods.

On the flipside, perhaps this was C&K’s strategy all along? C&K management were very quick to continue to provision food services for each centre at the highest known commercial rate per day. $8 was the quoted cost per child per day for an external company to provide fresh food services to C&K centres. Based on the calculations above, this would give C&K an operational profit for food services at close to $2 million per year.

Again, we as parents would highly encourage C&K to review this decision for the financial benefit of both C&K as an organisation and the community as a whole.

It is outrageous that parents have to pay a significant financial and time cost due to management choosing to remove a proven, efficient and financially sustainable in house service to provide meals to our children.

Fact vs Fiction.

Quite a few myths have been distributed by C&K management recently regarding the decision behind the removal of food services. Here's a list as well as the real facts behind each, with answers supplied by the Brisbane City Council;

During the ABC interview, CEO Barry Elvish stated that BCC had increased its auditing and inspection of kitchens, with costs being incurred upon each inspection. This was also mentioned during the community meeting.
This statement is FALSE
The BCC has stated that there has not been a change in the frequency of inspections and audits, and there have been no further changes to this recently.

During the community meeting, Barry Elvish and Mel Comerford mentioned repeatedly that C&K centres would need to have "Commercial Kitchens" installed for the provision of food services.
This statement is FALSE
It is not a BCC requirement for Child Care Centres to operate a commercial kitchen.

During the community meeting, Mel Comerford mentioned that up to 4 inspections per year would occur, each at a cost of between $500 and $1000 each.
This statement is FALSE
As mentioned previously, the frequency of inspections has not changed. The only reason for increased inspections would be if the initial inspection resulted in a low score, and a re-inspection is required. Should a re-inspection be required, it would be at a cost of $325 per inspection until the centre is brought up to an acceptable standard.

During the community meeting, both Barry Elvish and Mel Comerford stated that should food services continue at each centre, a food services licence would be required.
This statement is TRUE
However, what both Barry Elvish and Mel Comerford failed to mention is that it is highly likely a food services licence will be required REGARDLESS of whether they supply food to children at the centres or not. Here are some example scenarios of when a food license is and isn't required:
1) If parents send food in a sealed container, e.g. Tupperware, teachers/carers can re-heat without a food licence.
2) If parents send high-risk food (such as spaghetti bolognaise, etc.), teachers/carers can reheat the food but must have a food services licence due to procedures needing to be followed carefully to avoid food poisoning
3) If a parent sends an apple, or the child care centre wishes to distribute carrots or celery for morning and afternoon tea which requires cutting of the food, a food services license is required.
4) If a pie was supplied in a packet and reheated, a food services license is not required. However, if sauce was applied to that pie after reheating, a food services license is required.

In short, fruit such as apples, oranges, bananas, carrots, etc. will need to either be chopped up prior to the food leaving the home in the morning (and likely turn brown by the time of eating), or the child will be expected to chop it up themselves.

During the community meeting, Barry Elvish did mention that he wasn't sure whether a food services license was required to chop up fruit or not. It seemed that a majority of the reasoning behind the decision was due to legislative hurdles associated with maintaining a food services license. How can C&K now continue to investigate the termination of food services when it seems likely a food services license will be required across all centres regardless?

The number of grave misunderstandings and distribution of misinformation to the community highlights the complete lack of thought and consideration that has gone into the decision behind removing food services from C&K centres.

I would encourage all of you to contact C&K management and express your dissatisfaction of the inadequately researched and poorly considered decision of the removal of food services from C&K childcare centres.

[Whopper]

Attached is the letter from Barry Elvish, CEO of C&K Childcare Centres distributed to directors on the afternoon of 20 December 2010.

Seems that Barry is offended at the passionate response from parents and carers alike. The majority of the letter shows little deviation from what was proposed prior to the community meeting. In other words, they've had the meeting, ignored all that was discussed, and continued down the road to removing food services from centres regardless.

Unsurprisingly, they have had little response to the survey that was sent out late last week (or not sent out as reported by a number of centres). Due to the abhorrent execution of the survey by C&K management, "[C&K] therefore cannot proceed with a fee increase and maintaining food provision".

Their entire reasoning now for abandoning food services will be due to lack of response for a survey that was not delivered to all centres, just days before Christmas.

And to further rub salt into the gaping wound, it would seem they will be employing staff to support the implementation of the proposed outsourced service. Expect an "administrative fee" to be tacked on top of their negotiated rate.

"The decision to remove the provision of food was not done without considerable discussion at management and Board level". Well that's nice. Good to see only a discussion has resulted in the removal of food services, rather than a detailed analysis on the financial and family impact on the C&K community as a whole.

Absolutely disgraceful.

It is understood that not all 19 centres had the opportunity to participate in the survey as there was not an option to provide external food. This reasoning seems contrary to CEO Barrie Elvish’s undertaking at the Forum that he would re-visit numbers behind the decision to close the in-house food service

The handling of this has been nothing short of disgarcefull. The notification of cesation of food proovision is contractually precarious as reenrollments and new enrollments where required to be completed prior to the notification.It's wrong a decietfull. The contempt Mr Elvish has shown towards parents and children of C and K has been nothing short of breathtaking. His statement at the parents meeting that the board goes along with whatever he says shows that there is no accountability and proper perfomance measuring of his role. The whole premise of not raising fee's by cutting food is just smoke and mirrors. C and K have stated the additional $8 a day would cover the food provisioning costs. (which is actually only $4/day/child extra after CCR). Whether parents provide food or it is paid for by an increase in fee's IS STILL GOING TO COST MORE REGARDLESS. C and K are not doing parents any favours keeping fee's constant as are still paying more, however Barrie Elvish and his executive think parents are stupid so that's how he's going to try and pull the wool over our eye's.

Maybe not.

Pieter Hawkins

[Whopper]

Uh oh! Just read this on facebook

Oops! C&K messed it up again.
It seems that C&K's options for outsourced food are no longer on the table. Apparently, nobody knew that there was a requirement for a food business license at the start. When will C&K learn? How are parents expected to have any confidence in this crew when they stumble at every hurdle?

Well, it wasn't that nobody knew, this was made very clear in the community meetings and here in this forum,

(December 20th, 2010, 01:59 PM) During the community meeting, both Barry Elvish and Mel Comerford stated that should food services continue at each centre, a food services licence would be required.
This statement is TRUE
However, what both Barry Elvish and Mel Comerford failed to mention is that it is highly likely a food services licence will be required REGARDLESS of whether they supply food to children at the centres or not.

and

During the community meeting, Barry Elvish did mention that he wasn't sure whether a food services license was required to chop up fruit or not. It seemed that a majority of the reasoning behind the decision was due to legislative hurdles associated with maintaining a food services license. How can C&K now continue to investigate the termination of food services when it seems likely a food services license will be required across all centres regardless?

So for the past 3 months, a countless amount of hours have been wasted by parents (food preparation), C&K staff and external vendors because of the appalling initial research and decision by the board to remove food services from C&K.

The sheer amount of disruption and cost impact this has had on parents should be recognised as a complete and utter failure of the board and its members, and should be addressed accordingly.

I'm looking forward to the next "Future Food Provision Update" to see how they explain this one!

[Whopper]

This makes me angry on so many levels. Attached is the "Week 7 food provision update".

I'll let the report speak for itself.

I know how to save money - Forget cutting food provision - simply shut down the entire centre.....

Seems thats exactly what C&K are doing - they are closing down the Fortitude Valley C&K.

Barry Elvish's maths talent strikes again. Probably thinks that there are too many childcare centres in Queensland.

What an idiot.