Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council

The Authority used a computerised database system for recording all food law enforcement activity apart from prosecutions, and for compiling monitoring returns to the Agency. The system was generally capable of providing all of the information required. However, the coding system for enforcement activities did not clearly differentiate between planned and unplanned inspections and the Authority had experienced difficulties in the production of accurate planned inspection programmes for both food hygiene and food standards. Problems with the use of the coding systems also appeared to be a contributory factor to the inconsistent reporting of revisits and the under reporting of numbers of premises subject to written warnings.

The Service had effective arrangements in place to ensure that the food premises database was complete and up to date, although some of the documented measures had not yet been fully implemented.

It was clear that the Authority had already recognised some of the issues and had taken steps to verify the information held on the database and to validate the data submitted to the Agency. The measures introduced included the review of the configuration of the database and the parameters for reports produced for compiling the monitoring returns.