Evaluation of the Food Standards Pilot in Wales: Annex 6 End of pilot interview guide for the Food Standards Agency

Introduction

1. What has been your involvement in the Food Standards pilot in Wales? Was this as expected? Why/why not?

• Prompt: training and guidance for LAs, following up on data needs.

Implementation of the Food Standards pilot 

2. Could you provide an overview of how the Food Standards pilot was rolled out?

• What training was provided? 
• Any other support provided to the LAs by the FSA throughout the 6-month period? 
• Did the training and support occur as expected? Do you think LAs understood the changes and felt supported? 
• Is there anything you would like to keep/change about this when considering wider roll out? 
• Would you have done something different? 

3. On reflection to what extent do you think the pilot and control LAs participating in the pilot provided a good basis for testing the model? 

• Were there any aspects not covered by these 4 LAs that you think it would have been good to cover? (example: urban vs rural)     

4. To what extent do you think the Food Standards pilot achieved what it set out to achieve?

• Prompt: improve the risk rating of businesses, improve accuracy in the assessment of compliance, better prioritisation for interventions through the new decision matrix

Outcomes and impacts

5. What are your overall reflections on the pilot model now that you had seen it being tested in a Welsh context?

6. During the scoping phase you defined success as: 

• The LAs understanding the risk ratings and how to implement them.
• Identifying non-compliance during visits and achieving resolution.
• There being no fear or overwhelm from LA caused by the new pilot model and the possibility for more high priority interventions in a shorter timeframe.
• To what extent do you think these success criteria have been met? Why/why not? Please provide examples? 

7. What do you think the benefits of the Food Standards pilot were for…

• the FSA?
• LAs?
• Businesses involved

8. And do you think there were any disadvantages/risks of the Food Standards pilot for…

• the FSA?
• LAs?
• Businesses involved

9. How has the pilot impacted on the FSA’s relationships with the LAs?

10. How do you think the new risk scheme has impacted relationships with LAs and FBOS?

11. Is there anything you would change about the model in view of potential further roll out? 

12. Did you capture any learning from the pilot? If yes, how was this captured and shared? 

• Format – (e.g. training sessions or team meeting updates) and perceived effectiveness
• Audience – whether within organisation or across LAs (peer to peer sharing?)

Challenges and risks for further role out

13. In the scoping interview you suggested that changing LAs mindsets around the new model and frequency of interventions will be the biggest challenge to the pilot: was this as big of a challenge as originally thought?  Why do you say that? 

14. What were the LAs main challenges? How were they overcome?

15. What were the main challenges for the FSA? How were they overcome?

16. One LA raised that they were concerned about how challenging it will be to train their Environmental Health colleagues on the new Food Standards model, these colleagues have just gotten used to the current model. How do you think this has been accommodated for within the pilot?

• How do you think the proposed model will work for joint services where 
  • Food Standards interventions are sometimes carried out by Environmental Health officers who are not qualified in food standards? 
  • now they are not able to do the interventions jointly with hygiene interventions? 

17. A risk was raised about the ability to plan annual resourcing needs for the LA under the new model, particularly for joint services. Do you see this as an issue, is it something the FSA are considering? 

Feasibility of wider roll out for the FSA

18. What change in resource has the Food Standards pilot required within the FSA? 

• Prompt: resource, skills, time

19. How easy did you find to adapt to the pilot model and make the changes required?

20. Given your experience of the pilot to what extent would the FSA be ready to roll out the pilot model wider? 

• Prompt: resource, skills, relationship with LAs, promotion of the scheme.
• What would need to change to help prepare the FSA? 

Considerations for the evaluation 

21. What are your hopes for the application of the study findings?

Close

22. Do you have any other comments you would like to make about the Food Standards pilot, or the evaluation?