KENT County Council has plans for a major revision of its school dinner service.

In a bid to reflect the growing public concern for a healthier eating programme, KCC is abandoning its old single-contract one-size-fits-all policy and preparing the way for smaller localised cluster contracts.

At present, the county has a contract with a single firm - Initial Catering - who provide meals to 436 schools across the county, with just a handful making their own catering arrangements.

But Initial is approaching the end of its four-year contract with the education authority and, from September, 36 more schools have decided to opt out of the system.

KCC’s client services manager, Mark Sleep, said the new contract with Initial would be for one year only, while KCC finalised plans for a complete shake-up of the system.

Mr Sleep said: “We very much recognise the demand for healthier eating. It is something that has been brought right to the forefront of the public’s attention by Jamie Oliver, but we have been working on it for some time.”

The county has engaged nutritionists to plan possible menus that it would like future caterers to provide, and their meals will be chemically analysed by the Kent Scientific Services unit to ensure they are healthy.

From 2006, KCC intends to invite firms to bid for much smaller contracts, based on local school groups. Mr Sleep said a balance had to be found, which was why KCC was considering offering contracts for clusters of schools, rather than on a school-by-school basis. He said: “If all schools were left to make their own arrangements, the contractors would simply cherry-pick the best and the smaller schools would be left on the shelf because they were untenable.”

Mr Sleep praised schools such as Headcorn Primary that have decided to make their own arrangements from next term.

He said: “We are all working together on this. The aim is to provide higher quality meals for the children.”