Northamptonshire County Council

The authority had developed a ‘Food and Feed Standards Enforcement Service Plan for 2011/12’ that was broadly in line with the service planning guidance in the Framework Agreement. The benefits of including a comparison of the resources required to deliver the feed law enforcement service against resources available to the authority were discussed, together with a more detailed annual review of feed enforcement activities. Auditors discussed with the authority the level of resources committed to feed law enforcement activities and recommended that a review of resources allocated to these activities should be carried out.

The authority had developed a number of procedural work instructions for the service which required updating to take account of new legislation, the Feed Law Enforcement Code of Practice and centrally issued guidance.

The authority should develop and implement an officer authorisation procedure, linking the procedure to officer qualifications and competency. Generally officers, including the lead officer for feed, had received training in accordance with continuing professional development requirements and those officers interviewed were able to demonstrate a good working knowledge of feed legislation controls.

Auditors were not able to verify that the feed premises database was accurate and up to date, and the authority lacked a procedure to help ensure it was maintained.

The authority had not recently undertaken an annual feed premises inspection programme. Consequently feed premises had not been inspected at the frequency required by the Feed Law Enforcement Code of Practice. Some inspection activity was being carried out by officers in the course of reactive work such as sampling and dealing with referrals. However, these checks did not meet the minimum criteria of a full primary inspection. In addition the inspection aide- memoire in use did not provide sufficient prompts for officers to record details such as HACCP assessments and other information required by the Feed Law Enforcement Code of Practice. A feed premises inspection programme had been developed for 2011/12.

The authority had effective liaison arrangements in place both locally and nationally and had recently discussed the arrangements for implementing joint inspections with the Inspections and Investigations Team (formerly the Animal Medicines Inspectorate).

Record checks were carried out on unsatisfactory feed samples and in all cases it was found that the authority had taken appropriate action and ensured feed business operators had been informed of the results.

Record checks were also carried out in regard to a number of complaints and referrals that had been made to the authority regarding feed businesses in the area. In all cases examined it was found that the authority had dealt effectively with these enquiries and had made appropriate contact with the feed business operators.

While auditors were informed that an informal system was in place for dealing with any feed incidents in the area, auditors recommended that the authority develop and implement a documented procedure to ensure that feed incidents are dealt with and recorded in accordance with the Feed Law Enforcement Code of Practice.

Records in relation to samples and complaints/referrals had been effectively maintained, were up to date and easily retrievable. However, premises records and records of other feed law enforcement activities, such as inspections, provided insufficient information for auditors to fully assess whether these activities had been carried out in accordance with the Feed Law Enforcement Code of Practice.

The authority had not developed and implemented a documented procedure on internal monitoring. However, there was evidence that both qualitative and quantitative monitoring had been undertaken in the past, although this was not routinely recorded or documented. Auditors discussed the benefits of developing and implementing a documented monitoring procedure to ensure risk-based and proportionate monitoring to cover the full range of enforcement activities in relation to feed controls.