West Berkshire Council

The authority’s Environmental Health and Licensing Plan 2009-2011 covered the work of the food team but did not contain the majority of information required by the Service Planning Guidance in the Framework Agreement. The plan did not provide any information about the numbers and risk profiles of the food premises in the district and associated inspection requirements in the form of a planned annual intervention programme. Also the plan did not contain any information about the level of demand on the service in relation to reactive work such as food and food hygiene complaints and food related service requests. The absence of any detailed service planning information for the work of the food service made it difficult for the service to substantiate and quantify any resource shortfalls and did not facilitate the identification of the financial and staffing resources that would be needed to meet the full demands on the Service, in accordance with the Food Law Code of Practice and centrally issued guidance.

The Food Team Procedures manual required review and expansion to comprehensively cover all enforcement activities carried out by the Service and to provide operational guidance to officers.

There was no effective system in place to authorise officers in accordance with their individual qualifications, experience and competency. The authority should undertake a review of the legislation under which officers are authorised and ensure that individual authorisations are consistent with the extent and limitations of their duties and in accordance with centrally issued guidance. Record keeping arrangements should be reviewed to ensure comprehensive qualification and training records are maintained by the authority.

Despite numerous attempts at submitting data in the appropriate format, the authority was unable to produce returns for 2008/2009 to the Agency via the Local authority Enforcement Monitoring System (LAEMS) due to technical problems with the data files. Audit checks identified some database anomalies and the authority should therefore set up, maintain and implement a documented procedure to ensure that its food premises database is accurate and up to date.

The authority had an objective to improve all 0 star or 1 star food businesses under their Scores on the Doors scheme to achieve a 2 star or above food premises profile. However, as a result of this policy, food hygiene interventions across all premises risk ratings were not generally carried out at the frequencies specified in Annexe 5 of the Food Law Code of Practice and the service did not produce an annual food premises interventions programme. Food businesses were being regularly re-scored at visits undertaken before the next due intervention date without any justification for an early intervention or sufficient evidence that an adequate assessment had been made. It was not possible from an audit of the service’s records, in the majority of cases examined, to confirm that appropriate inspections or interventions had been carried out or that the risk ratings of businesses were accurately determined; and consequently whether appropriate and effective follow-up action had been taken.

Specific aides-memoire were not being used to record detailed findings following approved establishment inspections. Due to the lack of records, auditors were unable to determine whether the approved establishments complied with legislative requirements, whether an appropriate inspection had been carried out or to establish the basis for officers’ decisions regarding business compliance.

The authority had not developed an enforcement policy to confirm and detail their commitment to a graduated approach to food law enforcement in accordance with the Food Law Code of Practice and centrally issued guidance. In addition, documented procedures on available enforcement options required further development to provide operational guidance to officers. Audit checks on formal enforcement carried out, confirmed that the actions taken had been justified and had generally been taken in accordance with centrally issued guidance.

It could not be confirmed from all complaint records checked, that appropriate and timely investigations were carried out in every case.

The authority had not produced a sampling policy, appropriate procedure or programme and no food sampling had recently been carried out.

The service had not developed a procedure for qualitative or quantitative internal monitoring and there was little evidence of regular qualitative monitoring being undertaken. The introduction of effective and regular internal monitoring across all food law enforcement activities would highlight the variations in both the quality of enforcement work and the maintenance of adequate food law enforcement records by different officers.

The authority was actively participating in the Berkshire inter-authority audit programme. Officers of the authority had audited a neighbouring local authority and the authority had been subject to reciprocal audits.