Nottingham City Council

The service had experienced an unsettled time due to a reorganisation of the department, the current level of staff vacancies and some recent staff absences arising from long term sickness and maternity leave. Management and staff had made considerable efforts in order to maintain service delivery throughout this difficult period.

The authority had developed and implemented policies and procedures covering the areas of their food law responsibilities including approved establishments. The audit highlighted the need for the periodic review of these documents in line with the planned review periods set out in the service plan.

The authority had a documented procedure for the authorisation of officers, based on a competency matrix aligned to established posts in the service and to the activities within the service plans, which took account of officer’s individual qualifications, experience and competencies. The schedule of officer authorisation comprehensively covered the full range of legislation under which officers were authorised.

The authority had developed internal monitoring procedures for programmed inspections, which included monthly reviews and the use of documented checklists. The internal monitoring needed to be extended to cover approved establishments interventions.

The authority had not undertaken any recent food sampling within approved establishments, but a sampling programme scheduled for 2009/2010 would include all such establishments.

Some establishments had been approved for a range of products but not notified to the Food Standards Agency, and were therefore omitted from the national register.

The approved establishment files were generally well organised and maintained, although some hygiene inspection records and record of inspection sheets were missing from the files. It was therefore not always possible to confirm the basis for the compliance decisions made.

Some approved establishments had historically not been inspected at the correct frequency according to risk. However, at the time of the audit all establishments had received an inspection and were due to be inspected annually in line with the authority's service plan.