Half-baked or good hygiene? Dundee bans home-cooking from school fetes

Published on Tuesday 2 June 2009 22:01

BAKING fairy cakes, scones and other treats for the summer school fete has become an annual tradition for generations of schoolchildren and their doting mothers.

The stalls are a mainstay of fundraising events, bringing in thousands of pounds for desperately needed playground and educational equipment. But not in dour Dundee after it was revealed yesterday that the city's education department is imposing an unprecedented ban on home-baking stalls because they constitute a "health threat".

Dundee City Council has sent out an advice note to parent councils throughout the city, warning them that the sale of "privately" baked or produced food will not be permitted at any fundraising event. And the authority has also slapped a similar ban on one other money raising stalwart – the bouncy castle.

The bans sparked an immediate storm of protest, incurring the wrath of parents, politicians, celebrity chefs and the ladies of Britain's townswomen's guilds and rural institutes.

Sue Smith, the national chairwoman of the Townswomen's Guilds, said: "Making cakes with your mother or father is something children love to do and cake stalls are a much-loved feature not just of school fetes but also church fetes and many others. When we all eat food made in our own homes and have a choice about whether or not to buy from fetes, we don't need a council implying our standards of hygiene are not good enough and that they need to make this decision for us."

Lady Claire Macdonald, the award-winning food writer and one of Scotland's foremost ambassadors for traditional cooking skills, was equally outraged.

She told The Scotsman: "I think it is a sign of the ridiculous stupidity of this awful health awareness gone mad. It is completely crazy and it's killing off any desire in children to cook in a kitchen. Fundraising by selling food is one of the best things that parents and children can do. They take such pride in what they do and I am so ashamed of Dundee City Council. They are doing harm in bushel loads. We need to encourage young people to cook and I can't tell you how strongly I feel about such a dreadful decision."

The council's ban was announced at a meeting of the Parent Council at Barnhill Primary, where officials had been finalising their plans for this Saturday's traditional end-of-term fun day.

Rod Wallace, the Conservative councillor for the local Ferry ward, said: "It's a complete nonsense. At local primary schools the home produce stall is the lifeblood of their fundraising effort."

Councillor Wallace, who has written to education director Jim Collins challenging the decision, said councillors had not been consulted.

Eleanor Coner, the information officer of the Scottish Parent Teacher Council, said: "It appears that the city council is running scared of being sued right, left and centre."

She added: "Membership of our organisation includes public liability insurance for PTAs or parent councils to protect them. But Dundee City Council, when parent councils were first established, decided to set up their own insurance to cover parent councils. The restrictions are being put into play because of restrictions on that insurance and health and safety regulations."

A spokesman for the council said: "Head teachers have been issued with advice not to sell homemade food goods at events organised by the school itself. The decision has been taken by the education department on health and safety grounds."