Bassetlaw District Council

The food law enforcement service had undergone a recent period of change, having been without a team manager for several months prior to the audit, and installing a new database system. The auditors were advised that this had impacted on the service’s general performance in the intervening period. A temporary environmental health manager had been appointed to manage the team.

The authority had a Member-approved Food Service Plan for 2008/2009, which was broadly in line with the Service Planning Guidance in the Framework Agreement on Food Law Enforcement.

The authority had an officer authorisation procedure, but the mechanism by which authorisations were conferred to officers was unclear. The service could not provide evidence that officers had been correctly authorised to undertake their duties under all relevant areas of current hygiene legislation.

The service had no system in place to ensure that documents and procedures were kept up to date. The procedures that had been developed by the authority were in many cases several years old, and had not been recently reviewed in the light of recent legislative and technical changes within the authority. No detailed procedures were in place for any of the enforcement options open to officers.

The service’s new food premises database generally contained accurate premises data, and the service was able to provide detailed reports on its recent food safety activities.

General premises inspections were mostly conducted at the appropriate frequency, but approved establishments had not received the full range of inspections required by statutory guidance. There was insufficient detail provided on the report of inspections forms and inspection records to demonstrate that officers had fully assessed food premises against relevant legislation and centrally issued guidance. Correspondence with businesses frequently contained inaccurate legal references, and there was insufficient evidence to support the risk ratings given to businesses in several of the cases reviewed. Approved establishments files contained only limited information and there was little evidence that these premises had been re-assessed against legislation in force since January 2006.

An internal monitoring procedure had been produced, although this required review to reflect current and intended procedures for both qualitative and quantitative monitoring. No evidence was seen of any internal monitoring across the range of activities undertaken by the service, although new procedures had been developed and were in the process of being implemented.