FSA Board approves meat charging changes

Tuesday 21 April 2009

At its open meeting today, the Board of the Food Standards Agency approved changes to the charging system for official controls, known as inspections and audits, in UK meat businesses such as abattoirs and cutting plants.

Subject to agreement of the proposals by UK Ministers, the changes approved today will restructure the current system and reduce Government support to meat businesses across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The Board has agreed:

• to introduce a new system of calculating charges based on the time cost of the inspection process at meat businesses
• to increase charges by £800,000 across the UK, equating to a 4% increase (unless a business has already had a larger increase due to the requirement for charges to meet European Commission minimum levels)
• not to go ahead at this stage with a plan to introduce a new charge for official controls on removal of specified risk material (specified risk material is those parts of the animal that contain almost all BSE infectivity, if the animal is infected with BSE)

Today’s decision by the Board follows an extensive consultation on the Agency’s proposals.

The Meat Hygiene Service (MHS) has already made significant progress in reducing its own operating costs. The changes agreed today will encourage more efficient use of resources by both the MHS and meat businesses. The new charging regime will not impact on food safety, which remains the key priority for the Agency and the MHS.

Tim Smith, Chief Executive of the Food Standards Agency, said:

'We believe that the proposals approved today represent a considered and balanced response to the comments we received in our consultation exercise.

'The introduction of time-cost charging will provide an incentive for businesses to improve standards and the increase to meat hygiene charge rates will provide a more appropriate share of the costs between industry and taxpayers.

'We have consulted extensively on our proposals and have listened to what people have had to say. For example, that is why we will pursue an increase in meat hygiene charges of 4%, just £800,000 across the UK, instead of our original preference of 9%. Also, we will not to go ahead at this stage with the plan to introduce a new charge for controls on the removal of specified risk material.

'In the longer term, we propose to reduce still further the support that the industry receives from the taxpayer while continuing to protect the interests of the most vulnerable meat businesses.

'We have always said that the current level of support is inappropriate and unfair. The additional cost to businesses from the current proposals should be put in perspective. If charge rates are increased by £800,000, UK meat businesses will have to pay a total of some £30m in 2009/10, approximately half of the total cost of the controls.

'We are also continuing to drive down the overall costs of official controls. Very good progress has been made on this over the last couple of years and our efforts will continue unabated towards making further significant savings.'