Regulatory Audit Charter

Competent Authorities (CAs) include Food Standards Agency (FSA), Local Authorities, and the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs. 

The power to set standards and monitor CAs’ food law enforcement services was conferred on the FSA by the Food Standards Act 1999 and the Official Feed and Food Controls (England) Regulations 2009 (and parallel legislations The Official Feed and Food Controls (Wales) Regulations 2009 and The Official Feed and Food Controls (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2009).

Our audits are designed to verify the effective implementation of planned arrangements and to assess whether the planned arrangements are suitable to achieve the objectives of the relevant legal requirements and guidance. Our Regulatory Audit Manuals provide details on how we conduct these audits.

The aims of the FSA Regulatory audit function are to:

• Help to protect public health by promoting effective enforcement of food law 
• Maintain and improve consumer confidence in the system of official controls
• Assist in the identification and dissemination of good practice to aid consistency 
• Provide information to aid the formulation of FSA policy 
• Promote conformance to central guidance or Codes of Practice 
• Provide a means to identify underperformance in CA food law service delivery 
• Promote inter-authority auditing and peer review 
• Identify continuous improvement 

Principles:

1. All audit programmes must be selected based on a documented risk- based planning process.
2. Every audit programme must include clear objectives.
3. Every audit programme plan must ensure the audit team is resourced with the appropriate/specific technical competency to achieve the objectives of the audit programme.
4. The audit team will apply continuous improvement principles, to all areas of the audit system.
5. The audit team will be proactive in providing clarity to CAs (auditees) including, communication before, feedback during and feedback after all audit engagements. 
6. Each auditee will be provided with clear audit findings in a written report of the audit engagement. 
7. Auditees will, through recommendations made in the audit report, have a clear understanding of what improvements are required and agreed dates for their implementation through the action plan detailed in their audit report. 
8. The auditee will be given the opportunity to provide written feedback after an audit which will be recorded and independently reviewed.