East Devon District Council

This report contains the findings from the initial audit of the authority in April 2009, which focused on official controls and food business operator controls in approved establishments, and those of a subsequent broader audit carried out in July 2009. The latter was scheduled to further explore issues identified during the initial audit and to assess the authority’s food law service delivery and food business compliance in general food premises. The report therefore covers audit checks on any actions that may have been taken by the authority to address the priorities identified in the earlier audit, as well as an assessment of key areas of activity targeted at achieving food business compliance, across all types of food businesses.

The July audit confirmed that, since April, the authority had made some changes and improvements relating mainly to the implementation of recently produced procedures, namely:

• officer authorisations and related competency assessments
• improvements in the recording of food complaint investigations and outcomes
• improvements in the action taken in relation to the follow-up of unsatisfactory food sample test results in general food premises
• the introduction of a more comprehensive aide-memoire for general food premises inspections to improve the consistency of assessment of compliance and the information held on food businesses
• review of some records of approved businesses and the completion of appropriate product specific aide-memoires in accordance with official guidance

In order to address concerns raised at the April audit, where unsatisfactory sampling results for ready to eat foods indicated problems with hygiene and food safety controls at some approved establishments, the authority had carried out a fundamental review of its approach to inspections and follow-up actions. Although all relevant premises had been visited and some remedial action had been taken prior to the second audit in response to the issues raised, the matters highlighted at the April audit had not been resolved in a timely and effective manner.

The more recent audit also raised additional significant concerns in areas fundamental to the management of an effective food law enforcement service, namely:

• The service could not rely on the information held on its food premises database. Audit checks identified numerous problems which resulted in the authority being unable to develop a comprehensive food business inspection programme. The auditors acknowledged, however, that the authority was taking measures to cleanse the data and address this range of issues, although it was unlikely that the service would be able to report accurate data on its food service activities for 2008/2009 to the Agency or against National Performance Indicators.
• The auditors were unable to confirm that the authority was properly prioritising the known higher risk food businesses and operations, such as its approved establishments and those businesses that have been categorised as high risk, either due to the nature of the business or where vulnerable consumers could be affected.
• Generally, the service’s food business records did not include sufficient information on the business, the interventions carried out by officers and the basis for officers’ assessments of compliance and allocation of premises risk ratings.
• Where contraventions had been identified, it could not be confirmed that a graduated approach to enforcement had been adopted in full accordance with the authority’s enforcement policy. In a number of premises files audited, the same significant contraventions had been identified in a series of consecutive inspections, without an escalation of enforcement beyond informal advic.e
• Although the service had developed a procedure for qualitative internal monitoring of inspections, and there were references to monitoring of various enforcement activities in other service procedures, there was no evidence that effective qualitative internal monitoring was being undertaken.
• With regard to quantitative monitoring, the authority was unable to confirm the outcome of its 2008/2009 inspection programme, and there was no local performance indicator relating to inspection levels.