FSA Consultation Letter, 21 September 2007
The consultation document, inlcuding the draft Code of Practice and the draft Guidance, is available on this site: Draft Code of Practice (Warning: 1.91MB pdf file)
The key proposals in the review are the introduction of the concept of interventions and the redefining of official controls, as well as moving all food establishments into a risk-based inspection regime. Responses are requested by: 10 December
Consultation details
The proposals are to update the current Code of Practice (CoP) on Food Law Enforcement by local authorities, for England , under section 40 of the Food Safety Act 1990, and there is one proposed change to the new monitoring system.
The proposed changes aim to replace the current enforcement policy focussed primarily on inspections, with a new policy for a suite of interventions. This will allow local authorities to choose the most appropriate action to be taken to drive up levels of compliance by food establishments with food law. This takes account of the recommendations in ‘Reducing Administrative Burdens: effective inspection and enforcement' report by Philip Hampton, published March 2005.
As food authorities in England must have regard to this statutory code when engaged in the enforcement of food law, it is necessary to update the current code to reflect these recommendations.
There should be a clear division between what food authorities must do in enforcing food law, which must be included in the statutory code, and other advice which can be published as practice guidance.
Similar consultations are to take place in Scotland , Wales and Northern Ireland , in due course.
Main changes proposed
The most significant proposed change to the CoP is the development of a suite of interventions including inspections, to maintain or improve the compliance of food establishments with food law. This will bring UK policy in line with the specification of Regulation (EC) 882/2004 on Official Controls. Please see section 4.1, chapters 4.3.1 to 4.3.6 of the draft Code.
We propose moving establishments requiring approval under Regulation (EC) 853/2004 into the risk assessment system as detailed in Annex 5 of the CoP. This is likely to reduce the frequency of interventions at these premises. Please see section 4.3, chapters 4.3.1 to 4.3.6 of the draft code.
Proposed revisions of the code to introduce provisions for dealing with the enforcement of food law at the primary production level. Please see sections 1.1, 1.2, 3.3, chapters 1.1.2-1.1.8, 1.2.4 – 1.2.9.1.7 and 3.3.2.2.2- 3.3.3.4 of the draft code.
Proposed amendments to section 3.7 on quick-frozen foodstuffs.
We also propose to reduce the amount of information the establishment is required to provide when registering a new food business establishment; with a view to reducing the administration burden placed on new businesses. We would like your views on whether this would reduce the administration burden on businesses while still protecting public health. Please see Annex 8 of the draft code.
The code has in general been updated to reflect the change in the terminology used when dealing with inspections and interventions.
The code as also been amended to include the use of permanent transport authorisation in relation to live bivalve molluscs and a new annex containing a fishing vessel hygiene checklist. Please see page 112 and Annex 10 (page 170)
We invite your comments on each of the proposed changes.
Interventions and monitoring
The new Monitoring System – one change.
We propose making one change to the plans for the new monitoring system, which were the subject of a consultation exercise between July and October 2006. The planned outcome measure is to be the proportion of premises deemed to be 'broadly compliant' with food law. The assessment of 'broadly compliant' is to be based on:
Last year, we proposed that the assessment be based on the cumulative score for these factors, set at levels of 30, 20 and 10 respectively. Having reconsidered matters, and taken account of the comments received on the 2006 consultation, we now propose that each of these named risk rating factors be assessed separately, with no more than ten points being permitted in each case for a premises to be deemed 'broadly compliant'. This will avoid the risk of a high score for one factor being 'masked' by low scores elsewhere.
We invite any comments you may have on this proposed change.
The proposals for a suite of interventions follows from and builds on the proposals for a new monitoring system for local authority food law enforcement, on which detailed proposals were issued for public consultation on 31 July last year.
The table in the accompanying document shows how we propose that interventions are to be grouped together for recording and monitoring purposes.
What happens next?
The proposed policy changes will be considered further, in the light of responses to this consultation, in autumn 2007. We plan to finalise a revised code for submission to Ministers for approval by January 2008, and for that revised code to take effect from 1 April 2008.
The new monitoring system is also planned for implementation from 1 April 2008.
We are now drawing up proposals for training sessions, on both the new code and the new monitoring system, for local authority colleagues. These are to be held during the months of January to March 2008.
The changes currently proposed are the first section of a two-stage process with restricted but significant changes made to compliment the introduction of the new Local Authority Enforcement Monitoring System monitoring system and a second stage to address more wide ranging changes to the CoP.
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