More than 30 school kitchens across Bradford have been found to be in breach of food hygiene laws Reports obtained by the our sister newspaper the Telegraph & Argus under the Freedom of Information Act reveal slightly more than half of 142 schools inspected last year were given a clean bill of health by environmental health officers.

But almost one in four of the schools inspected were sent formal letters requiring changes which had to be put right by law.

Now Councillor Phil Thornton, chairman of Bradford Council's education scrutiny committee, has vowed to investigate. However the Council says all the breaches were minor and the standard of food hygiene in school kitchens was very high.

Schools are subject to unannounced visits from the authority's environmental health officers.Most schools are visited once every 18 months.

During 2005, 142 schools across the district were visited. Of these, no further action was required at 73 but officers made recommendations for improvements at 69 schools. Formal letters were sent to 33 schools where officers found contraventions of food hygiene laws.

Environmental health officers can impose statutory improvement notices or close a premises down. But these powers were not used at any of the schools inspections carried out last year.

Jeff Lawrence, the Council's environmental health manager, said formal letters were sent to schools for minor breaches of food hygiene laws.

He said: "A major breach would be if we visited a premises and found there was no wash basin for people to wash their hands. In that situation we would issue an improvement notice with a fixed time period.

"But if we found flaky wallpaper away from a food preparation area and there was no danger of it falling on to the food we would send out a formal letter."

However, inspectors found unsatisfactory levels of housekeeping and cleanliness at Lidget Green Primary School and Clayton Primary School and improvements needed in pest control at Windhill CE Primary, St Cuthberts Catholic Primary in Manningham, Nessfield Primary in Keighley, Tong School, Belle Vue Boys School and Greenhead High School in Keighley. Pest control at Wibsey Primary School was found to be unsatisfactory at the time of inspection.

Coun Thornton, the chairman of Bradford Council's Young People and Education Improvement Committee, said: "We expect high standards in all of the services which affect children, including catering, and food hygiene plays a major role.

"This will be something we will be looking into to find out what these breaches are."