HOT meals for Dorset's primary school children could be prepared in kitchens at old folk's homes and day centres.

Traditional school dinners were last served up in most county primary schools in the early 1980s.

But following a campaign by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, who highlighted the state of school dinners in a Channel 4 show, the Government launched a drive to improve the standard of school dinners across the country.

Although the cold school meals currently provided at primary schools in the county meet nutritional requirements the Government is providing funding to help introduce hot meals at schools across the country from September 2008.

Members of Dorset County Council's cabinet agreed to use the funding to set up a specialist team to look at how hot school meals can be introduced in Dorset, which could include sharing facilities with other community organisations including day centres and old people's homes.

John Surowiec, head of strategic services for education, told cabinet members that although the cold meal service supplied in Dorset met nutritional needs, the government has indicated that hot school meals should be available to any child that wants one.

"Some primary schools in Dorset still continue to make hot meals available but it's done through their own arrangements."

He said that because the Dorset policy was not to provide hot meals to primary schools as standard, many school kitchens had been turned into other accommodation.

He said the task force would look at alternative ways of providing hot school dinners because the cost of building new kitchens at schools would be too much.

Council leader Tim Palmer added: "We do need to think outside the box and be creative."