Lancashire County Council

The authority had developed an agriculture service plan for 2010/2011 that was broadly in line with service planning guidance in the Framework Agreement. The benefits of including a comparison of the resources required to deliver the imported feed law enforcement service against resources available to the authority were discussed.

In practice, only a very small proportion of officer time was spent on imported feed activities by the authority. There had been no known consignments of imported feed from non-European Union countries shipped to any of the three ports in Lancashire. A number of manufacturers in the county utilised imported feed in their ingredients and the authority undertook imported feed controls as an integral part of their feed law enforcement activities at these premises.

The authority had developed a number of procedural work instructions for the service but these were mainly generic in nature and did not always contain sufficient detailed guidance for officers undertaking feed law, including feed law enforcement activities, for example, feed business inspections, imported feed sampling, feed incidents, and formal enforcement actions.

The authority should develop and implement an officer authorisation procedure including a review of current legislation, officer authorisations and qualifications as part of this process. Generally officers had received training in accordance with continuing professional development requirements and those officers interviewed were able to demonstrate a good working knowledge of imported feed legislation controls.

The authority had recently re-risk rated feed premises having taken farm assurance schemes into account. Audit checks confirmed that feed interventions were being carried out at the correct frequency determined by the Feed Law Code of Practice. The authority acknowledged that a recently developed aide-memoire did not provide sufficient opportunity for officers to record details such as HACCP assessments, type and size of business and that they would review the use of this form.

The authority had developed good working relationships with the shipping agent at Glasson Dock and the relevant local authorities in the county. Auditors discussed the benefits of formalising these arrangements to ensure adequate and appropriate notification of potential high risk non-European Union country imported feeds arriving at the ports.

As part of the audit, a reality visit was carried out at a feed mill to assess the effectiveness of the authority’s assessment and application of imported feed controls in relation to third country imports. The visit confirmed that the authority was carrying out robust risk based inspection activities in accordance with the Feed Law Enforcement Code of Practice. The visit also confirmed the authority’s re-risk rating of the business, taking into account their industry accreditation scheme, had been appropriate.

Records in relation to imported feed were maintained, up to date and easily retrievable.

The authority had a documented procedure on internal monitoring. Both qualitative and quantitative monitoring was being undertaken. Auditors discussed the benefits of reviewing the monitoring procedure to ensure risk-based and proportionate monitoring to cover the full range of enforcement activities in relation to feed and imported feed controls.