To ask the Minister of Education to detail (i) when the last review was undertaken on (a) the number of chefs or cooks, per central production kitchens; and (b) their workload; and (ii) what is the policy on the number of schools, per chef or cook permitted.

The Education Authority (EA) is responsible for the employment of its catering staff, including determining the number of staff required, their working hours and their deployment based on the number of children and young people using its school meals service. The EA aligns its delivery of these responsibilities with its relevant guidelines.

An EA school meals kitchen that produces up to 200 meals per day will be allocated a catering manager. For every additional 200 meals produced in a kitchen, an additional cook will be allocated by the EA. This allocation of staff resource is based upon the number of meals to be produced by the kitchen and is not influenced by whether these meals are for consumption onsite or transported to another school. The EA reviews the numbers of meals produced in each school kitchen on a monthly basis to ensure appropriate allocation of staffing resources.