Gosport Borough Council

The Authority had effective arrangements in place to ensure that the food premises database was complete and up to date.

The computerised database system used for recording all food law enforcement activity and for compiling monitoring data was generally capable of providing all of the information required by the monitoring returns to the Agency. However, the coding system for enforcement activities did not differentiate between planned and unplanned inspections and visits and appeared to be a contributory factor to inaccuracies in the Authority's returns, including the under reporting of visits and premises subject to written warnings.

Officers involved in managing the database and compiling monitoring returns had taken steps to verify the information held on the database and to validate the data submitted to the Agency. There was evidence that these checks had highlighted inaccuracies in the Authority's inspection data in the returns generated automatically from the database. There was also evidence that the Authority had taken steps to resolve these issues as part of the validation of monitoring returns. This included manually amending the returns to ensure accurate information was submitted to the Agency.

All officers had access to the database and were able to input and amend data. It was evident that there were inaccuracies in the information being entered onto the database, highlighting the need for additional training.