Ashfield District Council

The authority had developed and implemented a detailed Food Service Plan for 2009/2010, which had been approved and was broadly in line with the Service Planning Guidance in the Framework Agreement. The plan contained information regarding the service’s statutory duties and estimates of the resources required to deliver these duties effectively. The plan also included a detailed annual review of the service’s performance against the previous year’s business plan.

The authority was able to provide evidence that it had considered the recommendations made in the Pennington Inquiry Report, and in response had implemented a number of practical measures aimed at monitoring and improving business compliance with legal requirements.

The authority had developed a range of documented policies and procedures relating to its food law enforcement responsibilities, including procedures to assist officers undertaking interventions at general food premises. All policies and procedures were managed by environmental health staff and the commercial team leader, who maintained responsibility for any amendments.

Officers, including contractors, were generally authorised under most of the relevant areas of food hygiene legislation. However, the authority needed to review officer authorisation schedules, in association with its legal team, to ensure that officers were authorised under all relevant European and UK food hygiene legislation in accordance with the Food Law Code of Practice and centrally issued guidance.

Individual officer training needs were identified as part of their annual performance review. All training records contained evidence that each officer had completed a minimum 10 hours relevant training in the past year, including recent training in Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) principles and methods for effectively auditing HACCP-based food safety management systems (FSMS). Auditors discussed the benefits of further specific training for officers regarding the implementation and assessment of Safer food, better business (SFBB).

The authority was implementing an effective risk based food premises inspection programme. An innovative computer based method had been developed to record officers’ assessments of business compliance with legal requirements relating to HACCP and FSMS. In most cases the authority was able to demonstrate that food establishments in its area were being assessed effectively against relevant food hygiene legislation, including legal requirements related to HACCP and FSMS. These findings were confirmed by the auditor visit to a local food establishment, accompanied by one of the authority’s environmental health officers. Auditors did however discuss the benefits of further expanding the food premises inspection aide-memoire to support officer’s assessments.

Although the authority had only two approved establishments at the time of the audit, it was not clear from the authority’s records if all aspects of Annexe 12 of the Food Law Practice Guidance had been satisfied or whether officers had completed a full evaluation of the HACCP based FSMS held on the files for both establishments.

It was evident from audit checks that in most cases officers were taking a graduated approach to enforcement and actively worked with businesses to achieve compliance. The information reviewed relating to hygiene improvement notices identified that in each case the enforcement decisions reached were appropriate for the contraventions identified.

The authority had implemented a documented food sampling procedure. In all cases audit checks confirmed that unsatisfactory sampling results had been followed up correctly, the food business operator informed and the appropriate action taken.

File checks of complaint records confirmed that on each occasion officers had followed the authority’s documented procedure, completed timely investigations of all complaints and notified the complainant of the investigation findings.

Discussion and review of internal monitoring procedures and practices indicated that although the authority was undertaking extensive quantitative monitoring of its inspection programme and limited quality monitoring of inspections and specific aspects of enforcement activity, the authority would have benefitted by expanding these arrangements to include monitoring of all aspects of the authority’s food law enforcement work.