Inquiry into the Alternative Provision Model for Ka Ora, Ka Ako (school lunch programme)
Background
In 2024, the Government announced an Alternative Provision Model to provide lunches to eligible school students.1 In October 2024, the Ministry awarded a contract to a consortium, the School Lunch Collective, to supply school lunches. That contract was for two years and its reported value was $85 million each year. Under that contract, lunches would be supplied at $3 for each lunch.
The Ministry also awarded a $4 million conditional grant to KidsCan to provide a new targeted Early Childhood Education (ECE) Food Programme.
It has been reported that the Ministry subsequently gave further funding of $8.9 million to the School Lunch Collective to provide more food for students Year 9 and above to supplement the funding under the initial contract.
Libelle Group, part of the School Lunch Collective, went into liquidation on 11 March 2025.
Concerns have been raised, both in the media and with us directly, about aspects of the revised lunch programme, including the selection of the providers, the quality, timeliness, and appropriateness of the food provided, how the cost of each lunch was determined, and what the Ministry communicated with previous providers.
It is important that public organisations have robust processes to ensure that they are clear about what goods and services they wish to buy, why the provider selected to provide those goods or services is best placed or the only provider to do so, and why the amount paid to the provider was appropriate. These principles help to maintain public trust and ensure that New Zealanders get the best possible outcomes and value for money.
Because of the importance of these services, the concerns we have heard, and the amount of funding involved, we have decided to carry out an inquiry.
The inquiry
The inquiry will be conducted under section 18(1) of the Public Audit Act 2001. We will examine the process by which the Ministry procured the school lunches providers for the Alternative Provision Model, including:
- how the school lunch model was developed and how the total amount of the contract and the amount that would be paid for each school lunch was determined;
- how the providers were selected and what due diligence was carried out;
- how decisions were made to expand the scope of the Model to include some Year 0-6 students as well as Years 7-13, and what the Ministry told providers affected by this decision;
- how the Ministry assured itself that the new school lunch model would deliver lunches of similar nutritional value and food standards as Cabinet had agreed;
- the process for selecting the provider for the Early Childhood Food Programme, including the funding mechanism used (a conditional grant);
- how the Ministry planned to monitor, and has monitored, the provider’s performance;
- how actual or perceived conflicts of interest have been managed; and
- any other related matters the Auditor-General considers relevant or desirable to inquire into.
We will not examine or comment on policy decisions underpinning the Alternative Provision Model or the decision to provide school lunches or the merits of any decision to select a particular provider.
Audit New Zealand’s Specialist Audit and Assurance Services reviewed some aspects of the procurement process and provided the Ministry with an assurance report in October 2024. That review did not cover the aspects of the process that the inquiry will cover.
We will not make any public comment while our work is under way. We will publish a report once we have completed the inquiry and the report has been tabled in Parliament.
1: Year 7+ eligible students, to students in all years in composite schools (Years 0-13) and full primary schools (Years 0-8)