1. Make the Department for Children Schools and Families responsible for nursery school food

In writing this report, the research team were passed from one Directorate to another within the Government’s Department for Children Schools and Families (DCSF).

We recommend that the Department for Children Schools and Families (in both Westminster and the Welsh Assembly) take responsibility for nursery food. Within that department, the responsibility in England should sit with the School Food Trust, and in Wales with the Appetite for Life team. They would be responsible for improving nursery school food, and be obliged to be publicly accountable and report regularly on progress.

These agencies should also be responsible for routinely collecting data on the nutritional quality of food served in all types of nurseries, to allow analysis, comparisons, and regulatory improvements.

2. Introduce compulsory nutrient-based food standards for all childcare settings

Governments in England and Wales should make nutrient-based food standards compulsory for all day nurseries, as they have for primary and secondary schools. There is large-scale support for this – 82 per cent of the nurseries and 85 per cent of the parents surveyed for this report want to see compulsory standards.

Nutrient standards are simple to use, and encourage better communication and scrutiny, as the composition of foods, recipes and ingredients are clear for all to see. They allow good practice to be shared. Perhaps most importantly, adopting nutrient-based standards would send a clear message that Government takes the health of pre-school children every bit as seriously as the health of primary and secondary school children.

The recently revised Caroline Walker Trust Guidelines for Under-5s provide the nutrient standards required. These should be adopted in England and Wales.

All nursery school inspectors should receive a copy of the guidelines and be trained on how to inspect to them.

Without nutrient-based standards there will continue to be anomalies such as the serving of high-fat and high-salt crisps that are banned in primary schools but can be served in nursery schools.

The guidelines should be introduced gradually, and funding must be made available to nurseries to help implement them. The funding could be used for example to purchase the Nutmeg menu planning software to help nurseries fulfil the requirements of nutrient-based standards or, where required, to have access to a qualified dietician.

3. Adopt a set of standards for nursery food

The Department for Children Schools and Families should adopt the Food for Life targets of 75 per cent unprocessed food, 50 per cent locally sourced and 30 per cent organic, alongside the nutritional standards produced by the Caroline Walker Trust. The Food for Life standards would ensure that high quality food would be available to children in nurseries.

The Soil Association founded Food for Life in 2003 to help schools source nutritious, fresh, local and organic produce and give pupils the chance to visit farms to see how their food is produced. Food for Life resulted in a rise in awareness of the quality of school meals. This was amplified by TV chef Jamie Oliver's ‘Feed Me Better’ campaign, which resulted in large-scale changes in Government policy, including the formation of the School Food Trust and the adoption of food-based and nutritional standards for school meals. Food for Life has since evolved into the Food for Life Partnership, a wide ranging programme of initiatives in schools and beyond, all of which inspire people to source food with care and celebrate its real value. There is also the Soil Association Food for Life Catering Mark, which is now being awarded to caterers providing food to schools, but which are not run by individual schools, and is currently being piloted with a range of other organisations, including nurseries. This scheme will be launched to further sectors in spring 2009. This mark offers a clear and structured framework for nurseries to provide more local, fresh and organic food.

4. Introduce a minimum spend on ingredients for lunch for each pupil

A minimum required spend on ingredients for lunch per pupil in nursery schools should also be introduced. This should be at the very least 50p, as it is in primary schools in England.

5. Introduce compulsory training on nutrition and healthy eating for catering staff and ensure that the catering service is inspected to that level by Ofsted/Estyn

Without training, nursery school catering staff will be unable to implement any intention to improve the quality of food served in nurseries. Governments in England and Wales should fund the training, and Estyn and Ofsted should inspect it and check that this commitment is being implemented.

In the long term, an accredited skills training qualification should be developed specifically for nursery school cooks, which would show them how to meet the new nutrient-based standards that need to be put in place.

The following is a list of minimum training requirements for all child-care settings, including Sure Start Children’s Centres:

• Hands-on cookery skills, menu planning, nutrition and the whole-school approach to food
• Level 2 training in Professional Cookery or Food Processing and Cooking at the absolute minimum. NVQs at level 2 are currently fully funded by the “Train to Gain” initiative, and this recommendation would align with the Government’s aim of ensuring that everyone goes to work with the skills they need to do their job properly
• Cooks who wanted further training could take the City & Guilds qualification, "Award in Providing a Healthier School Meals Service", which has been developed with the Food Standards Agency and the School Food Trust
• School catering courses such as the Food Excellence & Skills Training (FEAST) would also be useful

In addition, training is needed for the nursery staff themselves:

• The Certificate in Childcare & Education should develop a module about nutrition, healthy eating and activities that can be done in the nursery setting to adopt a whole-school approach to nutrition
• The National Occupational Standards in Children's Care should be reviewed to deal explicitly with healthier food provision for nursery-age children, and give appropriate and adequate training for the staff that are to provide it

6. Implement and fund an “Early Years Healthy Food Award”

A national scheme for England and Wales for Nurseries to achieve a Healthy Food Award should be developed, drawing on the success of similar schemes in schools. Some areas such as Birmingham (described in annex 2) have already achieved this.

The scheme should draw on the good practice of those local authorities with an award scheme. It must include the following key elements:

• A nursery food policy
• Healthy food provision, meeting Caroline Walker Trust guidelines
• Social and cultural aspects of food integrated into a child’s experience
• Healthy food integrated into the curriculum and activities
• Funded time for a dietician to go into every nursery to analyse and improve menus and help them attain the Early Years Healthy Food Award
• Involvement of parents and children in learning about healthy eating

The award would have a direct impact on Government targets to reduce the prevalence of obesity in reception year children.