Performance and Resources report quarter 4 2022 to 2023: Meat food business compliance (FBO audits)

Key successes in the quarter

Full audit completion achieved 97% in Q4 against a target of 90%, an increase of 5% points from quarter 3 (and 15% point increase from quarter 1). This reflects a third consecutive quarter of this target being met; the stabilisation of the workload post Covid-19 and the return to expected audit competition rates.  

The FSA audit team has been almost or fully resourced during quarter 4 meaning no additional veterinary audit resource has been required from our Service Delivery Partner to assist with the volume of audits in quarter 4.

98.7% (0.6% decrease from quarter 1) Meat FBO premises rated 'Good' or 'Generally satisfactory'. 

Number of meat FBOs rated

Full audit completion against target for England and Wales

Concerns / risks

The risk for recruitment and retention of auditors previously reported has now been reduced following the successful recruitment of a full complement of veterinarians to the audit team. It is recognised that the highly competitive veterinary market and geographical requirements of the roles could result in a re-escalation of this risk in future.

Next steps

Work continues to agree a memorandum of understanding and funding from Defra for increasing export assurance activity which will help support the FSA to provide assurance that establishments comply with requirements imposed by the third country.