London Borough of Ealing

It was evident that the Authority was working with food businesses to help them comply with food safety and standards legislation and was effectively promoting food safety and standards and using approaches that linked with wider national health promotion initiatives. The Authority had implemented a number of food safety promotion initiatives, involving the local ethnic minority communities, that appeared to be well planned, monitored and evaluated.

Records showed that officers were generally providing advice to businesses following routine inspections, during complaints investigations and when dealing with unsatisfactory samples.

The Authority's policy was to support the Home Authority Principle (HAP) and this was demonstrated by the fact that it acted informally as Home Authority for up to 46 local food businesses and had plans to formalise Home Authority arrangements with two of the businesses.

The Authority's Food Law Enforcement Plan, policies and procedures on business visits, sampling and complaints made appropriate reference to Home Authority/Originating Authority (HA/OA) activity. However the Food Law Enforcement Plan did not fully comply with the Service Planning Guidance.

Records showed that officers from the Authority generally considered the HAP when carrying out food law enforcement work including investigations of food and food premises complaints, as shown by evidence of effective liaison with home, enforcing and/or originating authorities.