To consider the 2016/17 Service Plan for Food Law Enforcement – TO FOLLOW.
Contact:K Lawson 388291
Minutes:
The Panel considered a report by the Head of Community (a copy of which is appended in the Minute Book) to which was attached a draft Service Plan for Food Law Enforcement for 2016/17. The Plan had been developed to comply with the requirements of the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and sets out how the Council’s food safety and hygiene enforcement function would be delivered for the forthcoming year within the resources available.
By way of background, the Commercial Team Leader provided information with regard to the Commercial Team who have responsible for delivering the food safety and hygiene enforcement function. This included the staffing and financial resources available to the team and the demands on the service. Members were advised that the number of food related service requests, complaints and queries had risen by just over a third over the last five years and that the overall budget for 2016/17 was 3.74% higher than in 2015/16, which, was a result of changes in the methods of internal recharging.
The Commercial Team Leader then went on to talk through the activities that contribute to the delivery of the Plan, which are set out in detail at Section 3 of the report. It was explained that the Services provided by the team were almost entirely statutory and that there were very few opportunities for income generation. In reviewing this section of the Plan, a number of questions were raised by Members with regards to the types of premises which are classified as being of ‘No Inspectable Risk’ and comment was made with regard to the changing nature of the provision of the school meals service given that a number of academies were now using independent meal providers and the impact that this would have on the Primary Authority Partnership scheme.
With reference to Section 6 of the draft Plan, which provided a review of activity within the previous year, Members questioned how many of the 700 planned inspections of food businesses had been completed in 2015/16. Having noted that officers did not have that information to hand, it was suggested that it would have been useful to include this type of detail within the report. In response to Members comments, Officers also undertook to amend this Section to reflect the fact that progress with the delivery of the Plan and its performance measures would be reported to the Licensing and Protection Committee on a regular basis.
With regard to the resources available to support the delivery of the Plan, Members queried the impact that a reduction in admin support staff would have upon the service and noted that inevitably this would have some effect. Members were advised that the delivery of the plan was based upon current staffing levels and had taken account of the existing vacancy within the Commercial team. In terms of proposals to fill this vacancy, Members were advised that a re-structure of the Community Division was currently being undertaken and the outcome would not be known until September 2016.
Having reminded Committee Members that the 2015/16 Service Plan had been rejected in the first instance as being unachievable and given the number of planned inspections which had not taken place in the previous year, the Chairman questioned to what extent the proposed plan for 2016/17 was challenging and realistic given that the budget was increasing and yet targets for programmed work were not being met. In response to which, officers explained that historically the Council had sought to undertake conventional routine inspections for low risk businesses in Categories D and C, however the Code of Practice allows local authorities to use Alternative Enforcement Strategies for low risk business which would enable efficiencies to be made. It was planned for example to increase the Council’s commitment to food sampling and to review the basis upon which complaints and service requests are investigated. Officers were confident that the targets set within the plan were realistic and achievable.
In response to a question regarding the resilience of the Service, officers explained that a serious or major incident or large outbreak of food poisoning or food borne illness would inevitably have an impact on the delivery of the service.
With regards to the future of the Service and with reference to the limited income that was received in 2015/16 from the Primary Authority Partnership Scheme, a Member questioned whether this represented good value for the Authorities investment and should be continued. It was suggested that the Committee might like to give this further consideration at a later date.
In response to Member’s interests in horizon scanning, the Head of Community agreed that mapping could be undertaken based upon the Council’s known growth projections to demonstrate what that might mean for the future of the Service. This could be presented to a future meeting.
Whereupon and having regard to the assurances that had been made regarding the realistic nature of the Service Plan and the importance of the Committee receiving monitoring information against performance measures on a regular basis, it was
RESOLVED
that the Service Plan for Food Law Enforcement 2016-17 be approved in accordance with the Council’s Constitution.
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