APA News

  • Local Authority Food Law Enforcement - “Overall Position is one of Growing Concern”.



    The FSA Board received the annual report on local authority food law enforcement at its January meeting. Amongst other things the Board was asked to note concerns raised about the performance of some individual local authorities, the sustainability of the current enforcement delivery model and whether the model is fit for the future. The issues raised in the report are more pronounced in relation to England and for food standards activity. They include:
    The number of food businesses and customer complaints continue to rise, while local authority staff resources, intervention and sampling levels continue to fall.
    Many local authorities are not able to deliver a food service as set out in statutory Food Law Code of Practice.
    The number of UK official samples has followed a steep downward trend from 92,122 samples in 2010/11 to 68,471 samples in 2014/15. This equates to a reduction of 25.7%.
    The professional staffing resource of UK local authorities has declined from 2,775 full time equivalents (FTEs) in 2010/11 to 2,303 in 2014/15. The decline has been most significant with regard to food standards where there has been a reduction of 38.6% FTEs.
    Local authority resources, particularly in England, will face further significant reductions over the next few years.

    The full paper can be accessed at http://www.food.gov.uk/sites/default/files/fsa160105.pdf
    The 2014/15 official statistics at
    http://www.food.gov.uk/sites/default/files/laems-annual-report-2014-15.pdf
    Sampling statistics by local authority at
    http://www.food.gov.uk/enforcement/monitoring/laems/mondatabyyear/enforcement-data-2014-2015  then click to download the UK sampling data spreadsheet.
    A podcast of the meeting can be accessed from https://registration.livegroup.co.uk/fsaboardmeetings/Downloads/