Scarborough Borough Council

The authority had developed a service plan for 2008/2009 which generally met the requirements of the service planning guidance in the Framework Agreement on Food Law Enforcement. However, the plan did not include any objective assessment as to how resources would be allocated to enable the Service to meet its statutory duties and deal with a backlog of overdue food premises inspections. Officers were appropriately authorised and carrying out their enforcement activities in line with their level of authorisation.

The authority has had no documented systems to ensure the accuracy of its food premises database and inspection programme. The service had been without suitably trained and dedicated IT staff for the last two years, which had led to problems producing computer generated management reports. This issue has now been temporarily resolved by recently providing training for a senior member of staff.

The authority had repeatedly identified a backlog of overdue premises inspections, currently over 900 premises, including a number of high and medium risk premises. The authority has opted to use contractors to address this backlog of inspections. The authority had on occasions, failed to demonstrate continuing business compliance with food hygiene legislation in relation to high-risk premises and timely follow-up enforcement actions. There was, however, evidence that a wider range of enforcement options was now being used to address these issues.

Qualitative and quantitative internal monitoring checks were carried out on a regular basis covering all areas of the service's activities. Comprehensive checklists had been developed for each area of the service and detailed findings were documented and recorded. However, actions resulting from quantitative monitoring checks had largely been ineffective in addressing the issue of annual inspection targets. The authority was participating in a thorough inter-authority audit scheme, which had recently highlighted some of the issues in this report.