FSA publishes local authority food law enforcement information

The information is compiled by the FSA from returns by local authorities and it gives the FSA a detailed breakdown of enforcement activity across the country.

The figures show an increase in a number of areas of local authority enforcement activity, and levels of hygiene compliance in food business, in spite of reported staffing reductions.

John Barnes, Head of Local Delivery at the FSA, said: ‘The figures this year show business hygiene compliance levels are continuing to improve with 91.7% of food businesses equivalent to FHRS level 3 or above. There’s also been a notable increase in food sampling by local authorities to check food authenticity and to make sure food is what it says is, is safe and is properly labelled.

‘These are very positive developments and it’s good to see that local authorities are continuing to target their work in the face of lower staffing levels, which have continued to fall and which reduced  by 3.2% in 2013/14 compared with the previous year.

‘We’re very aware of staffing pressures at local authorities and we are working with senior colleagues across the UK to ensure that effective controls are in place in local authorities to protect both local consumers and legitimate food businesses.’

Background

The FSA monitors local authority performance through Local Authority Enforcement Monitoring System (LAEMS) returns and reports on an annual basis.

The Framework Agreement on the Delivery of Official Feed and Food Controls by local authorities is the mechanism by which the FSA sets out the standards for local authority food law services, which includes the FSA’s monitoring and audit processes.  Details on the Framework Agreement can be found in the section below.

LAEMS is a web-based system to which local authorities are able to upload data generated from the local system(s) on which they record data on food law enforcement activities. Further details can be found in the section below.

Once uploaded to LAEMS, the local authority data is aggregated to the pre-defined categories required by the FSA e.g. interventions, sampling and enforcement.

Individual local authority data is published online and can be found via the the section below.