Minister in charge of school lunches, David Seymour. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
The associate education minister says the government had known for "weeks" that school lunch provider Libelle was experiencing financial difficulties, but not the full extent.
Despite Libelle going into liquidation, David Seymour said the government would not have done things differently.
Libelle, which is subcontracted by Compass to deliver 125,000 lunches, went into liquidation on Tuesday.
Seymour told Midday Report the Ministry of Education's contract was with Compass, not Libelle.
"Part of our contract with Compass requires them to be certain of the reliability of their subcontractors, so what we've done with the information we've had, I don't think we'd have done any differently if we went through the same process again," Seymour said.
The minister said there was a "delicate balance" between Libelle, its staff, Compass, and creditors currently going on, and so did not want to assign blame.
"I'm not aware of any reason to think that Compass have not been fulfilling their requirements as per the contract, but like I say for me to start pointing the finger at this guy or these guys, that just undermines the process that's underway and should be allowed to be completed so we can continue serving the lunches as contracted on behalf of the taxpayer."
Seymour said even with Libelle's failure, 99.96 percent of meals made it on-time on Tuesday.
President of the NZ Principals Federation Leanne Otene said Seymour discussed the "solution" of changing school lunch providers in a meeting on Monday.
Otene told Morning Report Seymour suggested there "may be a need to change providers" to "ensure that lunches were delivered".
She said she received an invitation to have a "frank conversation" about the school lunches - which happened on Monday.
"We talked about the frustrations we had; the fact that this was distracting; we were concerned about the fact our staff were really tied up in delivering lunches; we were concerned about the supply chain.
"I was, you know, quite happy that he was prepared to put it all on the table and to talk about the solutions going forward."
But Otene said 24 hours later she heard Libelle went into liquidation.
"I'm frustrated to say the least. I recognise and understand that he couldn't share that information with me on Monday, but I don't know how he could be so confident going forwards that this could be fixed."
The Collective last year won a contract to provide free lunches to about 130,000 students in 466 schools, but this week one of its three company members - Libelle Group - went into liquidation.
The Collective said Libelle Group provided 125,000 meals a day, but did not confirm whether it was the collective's entire meal output.
President of the NZ Principals Federation Leanne Otene. Photo: Supplied
Otene said Seymour told her "we are in for a couple more weeks of distribution".
"When I reflect on that I think yes, he knew that 24 hours later we were going to hear this news and it was going to possibly be more of a distraction for learning."
She said Seymour told her the supply chain would not be affected and said together they discussed three main solutions.
"The first discussion was about strengthening up the supply chain, he was not concerned about the timing of the kai arriving at school but more about the containers they were in, all the things we've seen in recent times."
Otene said the second solution discussed was a change of provider.
"[Seymour] suggested that there may be a need to change providers, so that was the second solution, to firm up and ensure that lunches were delivered."
The third solution, Otene said, was to return to local providers.
"He actually didn't rule it out.
"I really honestly don't believe he has any other choice but to look at that option now.
"This is an education policy not an economic policy," she said.
However, Seymour told Midday Report there were no plans to change providers.
"I don't want to relitigate a conversation, but if someone asks you 'are all things possible,' I'd say yes they are all possible, but I certainly haven't told her that we're considering the changing providers, and we're not."
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