Thurrock Council

There were significant managerial and operational difficulties identified during the audit in relation to the food standards and feeding stuffs law enforcement services. The Authority had never carried out risk based inspection programmes for food standards or feeding stuffs and although officers had begun to carry out food standards inspections, these were not as part of a risk based programme.

Records were inconsistent and incomplete across the range of enforcement activities and there was insufficient information in many cases to determine whether appropriate follow-up enforcement action was being taken or to allow for effective internal monitoring.

A significant number of problems were identified with the accuracy and completeness of the Authority's food premises database, which would compromise the Authority's ability to provide accurate monitoring returns to the Food Standards Agency.