Oadby and Wigston Borough Council

Oadby and Wigston Borough Council is a small district authority, where officers are required to carry out the full range of environmental health activities that includes a significant element of reactive work. In addition, there was a vacant officer post at the time of the audit which had reduced the complement of authorised officers by half. Despite this, the inspection programme had been tightly managed and the authority had ensured that inspections were being carried out at the minimum frequencies required by the Food Law Code of Practice.

The council had implemented a comprehensive food service plan for 2008/2009 that was fully in line with the service planning guidance in the Framework Agreement. The plan had been approved by members.

The service could demonstrate that effective procedures and arrangements were in place for ensuring that the food premises database was up to date and that information entered on to the system in relation to inspections and other food law enforcement activities was generally accurate. Checks on the database carried out during the audit confirmed that it was capable of producing accurate monitoring returns to the Agency.

File and database record checks confirmed that general food hygiene inspections were being carried out at the minimum frequencies and within the timeframes specified by the Food Law Code of Practice. A policy had also been adopted to inspect 'category A' premises every four months, which had resulted in improvements in compliance and a consequent reduction in risk rating in a number of premises. Inspections of approved establishments had historically not been carried out at the correct frequency, although the authority expressed confidence that following changes in the revised Food Law Code of Practice, such premises would be inspected at the appropriate frequency following their return to the general inspection programme.

The authority had an authorisation procedure that ensured that officers were authorised in line with their qualifications, experience and competency. The authorisation schedules did not fully reflect the authority’s own documented procedure, nor Food Standards Agency guidance. The service was intending to review its officer authorisations following the outcome of discussions that were in progress with neighbouring authorities.

The procedure on internal monitoring had been recently reviewed in response to recommendations in an inter-authority audit that had taken place in early 2008. There was evidence of some quantitative and qualitative monitoring activities across the service, however there was also evidence of inconsistencies in the detail of file records across activities examined. These discrepancies may have been minimised by more regular and widespread monitoring across all activities, followed by checks on corrective action.