CFG
21/06
Letter dated 16 October
2006 from Foodaware to Food Standards Agency Monitoring Branch,
Food Standards Agency:
Dear Sir/Madam
Proposed changes to Local Authority enforcement monitoring
system 2006
This consultation focuses specifically on the data required by the
FSA from Local Authorities (LAs) throughout the UK in order to fulfil
its obligations under European legislation and its requirement under
the Food Standards Act 1999 to monitor the performance of enforcement
authorities. The FSA is committed under its Strategic Plan to change
the way it reports on local authority enforcement activity by 2006,
and since 1995 has been working with representatives from LAs and
LACORS as part of a wider review of monitoring. One of the problems
which arises for respondees, when consultations are conducted in stages,
is that it is possible to lose sight of the broader context and purpose
when looking at the detail. We have tried to remain focussed on the
purpose of the monitoring system and consider what consumers and the
public would expect from it. As a result we make some more general
comments than are specifically requested and hope that these will
also be taken into account.
General comments
Foodaware has always recognised that one of the main reasons for government
involvement in regulating food businesses is to ensure that public
health and the
economic interests of consumers are protected against fraud, misrepresentation,
malpractice and incompetence. As the scope of regulation has increased,
however, the public have become increasingly concerned about the complexity
of food law enforcement at national and local level in the UK, variations
in the level of enforcement between different authorities and regulators,
and in the sanctions awarded by different courts and in different
parts of the UK. We have also expressed concern about the level of
resources available to local authority enforcement authorities, the
lack of powers to deal effectively with e.g. hygiene failures in small
butchers, unlicensed food premises and catering establishments, and
the illegal trade in unfit meat. People value local services but expect
transparency and local accountability too. It is essential for the
public to retain confidence in the monitoring activity of the FSA,
that appropriate and relevant data is collected from LAs to demonstrate
both the levels of activity and effectiveness of its enforcement arrangements.
This data needs to be put into the public domain with a comparative
evaluation of individual LA’s performance so that the FSA can
judge both the level of resource committed, effectiveness and the
consumer benefit obtained, and thereby account for its own effectiveness
in monitoring LAs.
Detailed comments
Q1. Do you have any comments on the general intention
to move to an enforcement policy based on a range of interventions?
We have supported a move to risk based enforcement to maximise the
effectiveness with which available LA resources are deployed and note
that the FSA plans a separate consultation on the details of the review
of enforcement policy. It is unfortunate that the review and Code
of Practice is being done after the consultation on these details
for we would have expected these proposals to have been framed in
the context of the policy as a whole. That would certainly have seemed
to be more logical. We would also expect that review to take into
account the recommendations of the McCrory report on enforcement and
sanctions but acknowledge that the FSA may have been faced with difficulties
over the timetabling of the relevant pieces of work.
We agree that the policy aim is to increase compliance and, as a result,
improve public health. However, this is not the only justification.
The public need protection of their economic interests from misrepresentation
about the nature and content of the food on sale, and its quality
where claims are made.
Q3. Do you agree with the proposed list of categories
for the reporting of interventions and to the use of this data by
FSA?
The proposal to classify interventions as ‘passive’ or
‘active’ is, we feel, somewhat divisive and unhelpful.
The implication that preventive educational work such as general mail
shots, workshops and enforcement drives are ‘passive’
is misplaced. Such work is extremely valuable and not ‘passive’.
Indeed, such initiatives may have a very significant impact on the
levels of compliance if take-up and follow-up activity within firms
is good.
Having looked at the illustrative list of proposed interventions in
Annex B, we acknowledge the value of different approaches for a variety
of circumstances and to meet different compliance needs. Formal enforcement
action may indicate that other means of achieving compliance have
failed. We are concerned about the proposal for ‘earned autonomy'
and think it should only be granted in special circumstances. The
FSA sees value in some businesses achieving ‘earned autonomy’
where officers have confidence in the quality of the management and
systems in place in a particular business. However, it must guard
against complacency and ensure that firms granted this special status
are reviewed from time to time. All businesses need to undergo some
form of assessment and inspection over time to ensure that inappropriate
changes have not taken place without the knowledge of the authority
particularly in the light of personnel changes.
We note that in para. 11 the frequency of intervention will be guided
by risk assessment, which we support in principle. We would hope that
the FSA will have learnt from the recent cases of Salmonella infection
that all firms need to be in contact with the regulatory authority
from time to time to demonstrate that they understand their obligations
to maintain compliance at all times with public health and trading
standards requirements. It would not seem to be sufficient for the
FSA to know the number of businesses in this category, but the extent
to which those companies granted the ‘special’ status
of earned autonomy change, and what the specific monitoring arrangements
for high, medium and low risk companies are. Para. 10 of the document
says that the Agency is also reviewing audit arrangements –
again these interventions need to be viewed in the context of the
audit plan and be verified by the FSA to command public confidence.
We agree that the Agency should use the data to inform reports to
the EU, its own Board and also the public who are not mentioned in
para. 14, but are important in terms of accountability. We would also
want the data to be identifiable by authority and not just on a national
or regional basis, so that interested parties can view the performance
of their local authorities if they so wish as suggested in para. 26.
We would also expect the FSA to analyse the data so it can assess
the actual and comparative performance of individual LAs as suggested
in para. 14.
Q4. Do you agree that the best available outcome measure
is ’broadly compliant’?
We agree that numbers of interventions will not be a sufficient measure
without a qualitative assessment to accompany the data. But we would
prefer the objective test to be ‘compliant’, ‘substantially
compliant’, ‘partially compliant’, and ’not
compliant’. The public will not necessarily be satisfied if
a high proportion of firms are ‘broadly compliant’ but
none seem to be operating fully in accordance with the requirements!
We also recognise the merit in building on existing scoring systems
where they exist. As a result, however, the difference in measures
for food hygiene and standards may be confusing and the matrix system
incomprehensible. Indeed the rationale for the matrix system is unclear.
Q19. Do you agree that advisory and educational work with
consumers should be removed from the assessment of service delivery?
No, we do not agree since liaison work and sharing knowledge about
the mechanisms for enforcement and the activities undertaken are necessary
and important aspects of the enforcement service. If this data is
not collected, the work may continue to be undervalued and under-funded.
If it is removed from the enforcement monitoring report, as it is
not viewed as an indicator of ‘enforcement’ activity or
performance, the FSA should still collect data on this. Public information
and consumer education is an indicator of the value the LA places
on informing consumers of its role and activity, and ways in which
they can assist in prevention by making clear their expectations of
suppliers and informing the LA where standards appear not to have
been met.
We support the FSA in seeking to establish clear priorities for local
authority food law enforcement and welcome the commitment to publish
the LA monitoring data on its website. We recognise that there may
be teething problems in establishing this new system and would expect
debate in the early stages about the accuracy and quality of the data.
But this is a necessary evolution of the FSA’s monitoring role
which will need to be adequately resourced and must be encouraged.
Yours sincerely
Susan Knox
Chairman
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