Agenda item

Report of the Service Director (Resident and Neighbourhood), and associated Food Service Safety Plan.

This is an annual service plan which sets out what the Council will deliver in terms of its food safety service and is required to be approved by Members each year.

Presentation of the Food Safety Service Plan for approval is later than usual this year due to staff changes within the service. However, the service is being delivered in accordance with the Plan.

The plan follows the Food Standards Agency (FSA) guidance and templates guidance, which sets out each element of the food safety service being delivered.

During the Covid period many local authorities had to stand back from doing some of their inspection work because many of the Food Safety teams were dealing with Covid response work. In recognition of this the FSA set out a plan of how local authorities would recover their positions once the real peak of Covid had passed in order to get back on track with their food inspections.

At the time of the plan being written in mid-October there were 358 inspections due. That number, as of 21 November has reduced to 223, so good progress is being made with the backlog of inspection work and the council are currently on track to make sure that all inspections due or overdue are completed by the end of March.

The rest of the plan sets out how complaints are dealt with and the enforcement approach. It also includes details of staffing resources and the usual things you'd expect to see in a safety plan which vary little from year to year. The main feature is the number of inspections and how we've met the FSA recovery plan.

Members are asked to consider the Food Safety Service Plan and provide any comments before final approval by Cabinet.

Officers clarified the following points in response to Members’ queries:

• Permanent recruitment will be undertaken in the spring to replace the current interim manager post referred to in the report.
• Mobile food unit traders required to be food registered from the local authority they reside their vehicle in. The council can undertake inspections and enforcement and would speak to the home local authority to make them aware of any shortcomings.
• Officers collaborate with food standards at Herts County Council as this is where the trading standards function sits.
• Assistance is provided, where needed, on labelling of food, and info sheets can be shared, and/or direction to trading standards made.
• Following food inspections, businesses are risk rated. The rating given would determine how frequently follow up inspections would be. Those at higher risk would be every 6 months and lower risk anything up to 5 years. Officers noted that new ownership would prompt an earlier inspection, as would a complaint.
• Only a small proportion of businesses are penalised with enforcement action, as the usual approach would be to provide advice. Formal action would be taken if there was deemed to be an immediate risk or if there was persistent non-compliance.
• A member had received complaints about a mobile unit operating from a driveway. Officers asked for details to be shared after the meeting.
• Proactive sampling to date has been limited due to the inspection backlog. Officers are looking to do some sampling in Jan-March, and from April onwards will have a sampling programme in place.
• Officers confirmed that in the event of a poisoning outbreak they would need to divert the Food Safety resource. Therefore, some inspections may be delayed for a couple of days. It was clarified that all work is prioritised, so work would not be stopped or dropped, just rescheduled.
• There has been an increase in the number of unplanned activities, this is likely to be in relation to some standards slipping during the covid pandemic. Officers said that with the food inspection programme back up and running they are confident that standards would improve.
• short-term contractors started work a few months ago to help clear the backlog.
• Most of the spread across the outstanding inspections are in the lower categories (Ds and Es). There are very few higher risk categories in the backlog.
• When a new business is set up, they are required by law to send in their food registration form to the local authority 28 days before they start trading. FSA guidance says that the local authority should be seeking to undertake that inspection within 28 days of receiving the form. The council are almost up to date with food registration forms. There was a bit of backlog of getting the forms input and getting out to do those inspections. There are now only around 10 or 12 to be inspected.
• There are monitoring arrangements for officers to ensure they meet the requirements of the FSA. There have been some shadowing inspections with officers, and particularly the contractors, to make sure requirements of the legislation are being met and will be doing that for council staff again as a matter of routine during January-March.

RESOLVED (unanimously)

            That members note the report.