Leicester City Council

Leicester City Council is a unitary authority with separate food safety team and trading standards teams enforcing food legislation. The trading standards officers in Leicester work across a number of regulatory areas with no managers or officers dedicated exclusively to food law enforcement. The authority had developed a service plan for food law enforcement which was generally in line with the service planning guidance in the Framework Agreement. The plan would benefit from the inclusion of information about staff and financial resources for the service. Anomalies were noted between the two teams' records of the types and numbers of food establishments in the city.

The authority had developed an enforcement policy and prosecutions policy for regulatory activities but did not maintain documented policies and procedures for each of the enforcement activities covered by the scope of the audit or in accordance with the Food Law Code of Practice. Auditors discussed the benefits to the authority of developing documented procedural guidance across all enforcement activities in order to provide useful reference in the absence of key specialist officers, to promote officer consistency, and to provide the basis for effective internal monitoring.

Although the authority had developed a scheme of authorisation, the officers' warrant of authority required review in accordance with the scheme. The current method of authorising officers needed to be reviewed and documented to take account of their individual qualifications, training and competency. In general officers were found to have completed the minimum 10 hours of relevant training based on continuing professional development (CPD). Although a number of officers had recently attended training on imported food controls, auditors discussed the benefit of officers in both teams maintaining a more comprehensive knowledge of imported food legislation and relevant controls.

A recent lack of staff resources in the trading standards team had led to a significant number of food standards interventions becoming overdue. The food safety team had prioritised their interventions scheme as they were also unable to achieve the intervention frequency required by the Food Law Code of Practice based on their current staff resources.

Significant variation was noted in the quality of records retained between different officers in both teams in relation to food inspection, food sampling and enforcement actions. Audit checks confirmed that some investigatory enforcement actions had been comprehensively carried out and records maintained. However, auditors noted that in many cases appropriate follow-up actions had not always been taken.

There were effective liaison arrangements between the authority and its neighbouring authorities, for example proactive and committed attendance at food liaison groups, and with central government departments and external stakeholders.

Auditors were advised that changes were made to the operational management of the trading standards service in autumn 2009 whereby the trading standards manager was acting up for a head of service on secondment. Two frontline officers strengthened management and support.

The authority did not maintain a documented internal monitoring procedure. However there was some evidence of qualitative monitoring within the food safety team. Quantitative monitoring such as interventions and enforcement activities were reported through the annual service plan.