Preston City Council

The Authority had developed and implemented a comprehensive range of policies, procedures and work instructions that dealt with internal monitoring of food law enforcement.

In practice, there was evidence that quantitative monitoring was being carried out in a number of different ways including an annual review of the Environmental Health Service Delivery Plan, quarterly reports on progress against key performance indicators, monthly reports to the management team on progress against targets and a review of performance at monthly team meetings.

With regard to qualitative monitoring, there was evidence of a well established range of practical measures taken to monitor the quality of food law enforcement. These included accompanied inspections, customer satisfaction surveys, internal quality audits and final verification checks on work carried out. Findings from the business focus group and a survey of businesses and residents were also considered and discussions were held with officers during one-to-one meetings and through the staff appraisal system.

Overall, the effectiveness of the internal monitoring measures was evident in file and database checks carried out during the audit, where records confirmed that officers were consistently carrying out their work effectively. There were few areas where it was considered that more effective monitoring needed to be introduced.

The Authority had a well established quality management system set up with neighbouring authorities in Lancashire. As part of this, Preston was subject to regular inter authority audits and audits by externally accredited auditors. The Authority had also participated in regular consistency exercises with other Food Authorities in Lancashire. There was evidence that any corrective actions identified as part of internal monitoring or external review were effectively dealt with in line with the Authority�s quality management system.