Manchester City Council

Manchester City Council is a Unitary Authority with separate environmental health and trading standards services within the same division. Manchester City Council had responsibility for the enforcement of official controls of food and feed not of animal origin at Manchester Airport.

Food law enforcement, both food safety and standards was being undertaken by the environmental health service. Trading standards retained responsibility for enforcing feed legislation. During the audit, the arrangements for the control of imported feed were discussed. There were no competent officers for enforcing feed legislation at the authority. Auditors were advised that the service was considering new arrangements with relevant local authorities to ensure that feed control enforcement was undertaken, including checks on imported feed.

The authority had developed an environmental health food service plan 2010/2011, which also contained the trading standards feeding stuffs service plan. The plan had been drawn up generally in line with the service planning guidance in the Framework Agreement. The plan would benefit from including information about staff and financial resources for the service.

Systematic checks were in place to identify food, including high risk consignments being imported through Manchester Airport. Imported food controls, including documentary checks, physical checks and sampling, were risk based and targeted in accordance with the regulations. Appropriate official controls were generally being carried out as required on high-risk food not of animal origin (FNAO) However, there had been problems in consistently meeting the required proportion of sampling checks required.

Appropriate action had been taken on unsatisfactory consignments and where necessary notices had been served requiring follow-up action. Auditors discussed the need to ensure that there was official documentation to confirm that rejected high-risk FNAO had been destroyed. Improvements to record keeping and the completion of Common Entry Documents (CEDs) were discussed.

The authority had developed and implemented policies and procedures covering most areas within the scope of the audit. There were a number of procedures that required some further development, including those on the destruction of FNAO and the generation of the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF). The procedural document for imported food controls and sampling at the airport needed to be expanded to include practical arrangements including sampling of high-risk products.

The authority had documented procedures for the authorisation of officers for environmental health and trading standards activities. Both procedures needed to be reviewed to ensure that officers were specifically authorised to act under the full range of relevant food and feed legislation; the Trading Standards procedure needed to be amended to better reflect operational responsibilities.

There were extensive and effective liaison arrangements in place with central government, other enforcement bodies, professional organisations and other external stakeholders, including airport operators and importing agents. The authority had proactively provided advice to businesses on imported food control requirements.

There were no documented internal monitoring procedures in place but quantitative monitoring figures were being regularly reported to senior managers. Auditors were advised of qualitative monitoring activities being carried out in practice. However, in many instances no records were kept and it was not clear that qualitative monitoring was being undertaken on a risk basis across all areas of the imported food control service.