Food Law News - UK - 2007


FSA Update, 15 May 2007

OFFICIAL CONTROL - Tenth update on applying EU feed and food controls regulation

An update on the progress since April 2007 on the measures being taken to apply EU Regulation 882/2004 on official controls in the UK has been published by the Agency.

The eighth update informed you that a full public consultation on draft European Commission Guidelines on annual reports on implementation of National Control Plans was launched in November 2006. This update provides information on the development of these guidelines since then. It also provides information about the work that the Agency is taking forward to implement Article 28 of Regulation 882/2004 which requires that the competent authorities (regulatory or enforcement authorities) must charge feed/food business operators for the expenses arising from 'additional official controls'.

European Commission Guidelines on annual reports on implementation of National Control Plans

The public consultation on these guidelines closed on 30 January 2007. The views expressed by stakeholders were taken into account in developing the UK position for the on-going EU level discussions. We wrote to interested parties on 26 April 2007 to update them on these discussions and to seek any further comments that they may have on the latest draft of the text. The draft text can be found at the link below. The final draft of the Guidelines is expected to be presented for an opinion to the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health in mid-May (with adoption in June).

Financing of official controls

The eighth update also indicated that the Agency was taking work forward to implement the financing provisions of Regulation 882/2004 which apply from 1 January 2007 and, in particular, in respect of Article 28. This requires that the competent authorities charge feed and food business operators for expenses arising from 'additional official controls' that are undertaken following the detection of non-compliance with feed and food law and where they exceed the competent authority's normal control activities. The Agency has now launched public consultations on the implementation of this provision in England and in Northern Ireland . The consultations can be found at the links below and will run until 20 July. Consultations will be launched in Scotland and Wales once the new administrations are in place following the elections in early May 2007.


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