It’s predominately based on when I think ProVeg would have had capacity to work with Hackney and get this change moving. Like I’ve mentioned above, they only have one person working on the School Plates campaign and things generally take on the order of 12-18 months from initial contact to implementation. Most councils (90%+) don’t reply to ProVeg’s outreach emails so I can’t imagine Hackney being particularly different over the next 1-2 years.
The much smaller probability is that either a very proactive councillor or very proactive citizen wanted to push this through but I think it would have been unlikely. It would be unlikely for the councillor to instigate such a thing in my opinion as councillors are generally extremely busy and not willing to go out on a limb on a politically risky move (as I think this is) without some external pressure. Also that most councillors aren’t that motivated by animals or climate reasons. I don’t think a citizen would have instigated this change as councils are actually quite complex to get your head around and most people don’t even know how to go about this. Even with providing people with lots of information, people struggle to know the best people to contact and how to pitch an idea so I’m doubtful it would have happened organically this way for the next few years at least.
Regarding the drop-out rate, that’s a good point. Although I’m fairly confident that individual schools themselves can’t drop out, as all the catering/food is provided by the council so I think it’s an all or nothing situation. Obviously the nothing situation would be extremely bad but I think a whole council quitting is quite unlikely (but not impossible).
It’s predominately based on when I think ProVeg would have had capacity to work with Hackney and get this change moving. Like I’ve mentioned above, they only have one person working on the School Plates campaign and things generally take on the order of 12-18 months from initial contact to implementation. Most councils (90%+) don’t reply to ProVeg’s outreach emails so I can’t imagine Hackney being particularly different over the next 1-2 years.
The much smaller probability is that either a very proactive councillor or very proactive citizen wanted to push this through but I think it would have been unlikely. It would be unlikely for the councillor to instigate such a thing in my opinion as councillors are generally extremely busy and not willing to go out on a limb on a politically risky move (as I think this is) without some external pressure. Also that most councillors aren’t that motivated by animals or climate reasons. I don’t think a citizen would have instigated this change as councils are actually quite complex to get your head around and most people don’t even know how to go about this. Even with providing people with lots of information, people struggle to know the best people to contact and how to pitch an idea so I’m doubtful it would have happened organically this way for the next few years at least.
Regarding the drop-out rate, that’s a good point. Although I’m fairly confident that individual schools themselves can’t drop out, as all the catering/food is provided by the council so I think it’s an all or nothing situation. Obviously the nothing situation would be extremely bad but I think a whole council quitting is quite unlikely (but not impossible).