Performance and Resources report quarter 2 2022/23: Achieving Business Compliance

• Large retailer proof of concept trails on track for quarter 4. Large retailers partners; Asda, Tesco, Waitrose, Sainsbury's and Morrisons. 
• Food Safety Charter developed with Deliveroo, JustEat and UberEats announced at FSA Board.
• Food Law Code of Practice amendments drafted with consultation commenced 17 October 2022. 
• 3 nation agreement on approach to Food Standards delivery plan reached. Endorsement from FSA Board to evaluate LA engagement.

Key successes in the quarter

• Enterprise level regulation: Ongoing engagement with the 5 large retailers participating in the proof of concept trial, preliminary data and reports already shared by 3/5 of them are allowing exploration of consistency. New (temporary - for the duration of the pilot) roles have been created to support the FSA to form new relationships with these businesses and Primary Authorities to test out whether we can effectively regulate at an enterprise (as opposed to premises) level. 

• Online assurance: The Food Safety Charter four headline principles were announced, and work underway with the aggregators on detailed actions beneath them. The direct links with the 3 aggregators has already demonstrated benefits for LA colleagues, with concerns about FBO behaviour being shared directly with the aggregators.  
• Food standards pilots: Evaluations now complete for food standards pilot, and consultation from October – January 2023 secured. Positive movement towards targeting interventions at the key parts of the supply chain where they can have the greatest impact.
• Food hygiene: Continuing to develop the project to modernise the Food Hygiene Delivery model, worked with senior managers and policy across the three nations to agree on an approach to minimise delays to the project delivery plan. The FSA Board in September endorsed the headline policy and principles to evaluate success of Local Authority (LA) Engagement.

Concerns / risks

• the requirement for the department to deliver against the Retained EU Law (REUL) and other priority/time bound activity may impact the ability to deliver at the intended pace
• potential that the FSA will have a tightened annual spend from 2023/24, which will impact the ABC budget agreed in Spending Review 2021, impacting the scale and ambition of change, and will need to be carefully managed to ensure stakeholder expectations are not diminished.

Next steps

• Enterprise level: Advancing to Large Retailer proof of concept trial in Q4. Development of the verification model is underway.
• Online assurance aggregator charter: Aide memoire for aggregator onboarding teams being finalised and to be released Nov 22. Continued support to develop the Food Safety Charter, providing detail on how aggregators will support the principal statements. 
• Food standards: 12-week consultation (with Local Authorities, Food Businesses, Trade Unions and Industry groups) commenced on 17 October on proposed changes to Food Law Code of Practice (FLCoP). Face to face LA engagement events undertaken throughout November, to cover new food standards model and KPI proposals for LAs under the new model. 
• Food hygiene delivery review: Drafting initial policy proposals for modernised model for clearance. Considering pilot scheme versus pure modelling for impact assessment.