East Cambridgeshire District Council

The authority’s planning arrangements included a comprehensive food safety service plan for 2008/2011, which had been approved by members, and regular reviews of performance against key local objectives. Significant issues impacting on the authority’s ability to deliver the service, such as staff resources and workloads following the transfer of the council’s full licensing function, including taxi licensing, were brought to the attention of members.

The authority demonstrated that it was preparing to report against the new national performance indicators (PIs) relevant to food law enforcement. The PIs were to be included in the 2008/2009 revision of the service plan, and the service database had been programmed to provide relevant management reports.

The authority had a comprehensive set of policies and procedures covering most food law enforcement activities, which had been reviewed in July 2008. Some additional procedures could usefully be incorporated and some minor amendments were required to the existing documents.

Officers were properly authorised in line with their individual levels of qualification, training and experience, and in accordance with the authority’s documented authorisation procedure. The 'instruments of appointment' documents required review to ensure they contain up to date legislation references and that those cited are consistent. Officer’s individual training needs were assessed and collated in an annual training plan and good training opportunities were provided.

The service had resolved historical problems with its database software configuration and had effective arrangements for ensuring the database was up to date and that accurate records of enforcement activity were recorded.

The authority had, historically, not inspected food businesses in accordance with the Food Law Code of Practice (CoP) minimum frequency requirements. The auditors were advised that this was due to severe staffing resource issues, however, more recent inspections of general food businesses had largely been carried out on time. Inspections of the Authority’s approved premises needed to meet the minimum frequency requirements of the revised CoP (published in June 2008).

The authority appeared to have a relatively high proportion of higher risk food businesses than comparable authorities, and several businesses had remained high risk over numerous successive inspections. However, whilst it was apparent that officers were prepared to use the full range of formal enforcement powers available, follow-up action had not been taken in all cases, where necessary.

The authority had produced a documented internal monitoring procedure that covered most areas, but the qualitative checks had not been implemented fully, in practice. While the monitoring arrangements for a relatively small team working closely together need to be proportionate, it is important to ensure that monitoring covers the full range of activities at all officer levels, and that this is recorded. More formalised monitoring of formal enforcement actions and approved premises is of particular importance.