Edinburgh (Core Audit)

The City of Edinburgh Council is a Scottish Unitary Local Authority and therefore has responsibility for enforcing food hygiene, food standards and feeding stuffs law within the City Council�s area.

According to the 2005/2006 Food Service Plan 5,478 businesses in the Authority�s area are subject to food law enforcement, although this could not be verified by data from the database. There are also 17 registered establishments under feeding stuffs legislation.

The Authority has a Food Service Plan covering food hygiene, food standards and feeding stuffs law enforcement that generally meets the requirements of the Service Planning Guidance in the Framework Agreement.

An annual review based on the 2004/2005 Service Plan had been carried out, but neither that review nor the 2005/2006 Service Plan had been reported to the appropriate Member forum at the time of the audit.

The Authority has appointed authorised Officers and inspectors to enforce food and feeding stuffs law, and qualification and training records for food law enforcement Officers demonstrate that Officers are appropriately qualified, although not all are receiving continuing development training in accordance with the Code of Practice. Some food law enforcement Officers were acting beyond the scope of their authorisations.

Some food hygiene and food standards premises inspections are not being conducted at the minimum frequencies required by the Code of Practice, and records relating to the inspection of establishments that are subject to Regulation (EC) No. 853/2004 are not sufficiently detailed in some cases to determine whether approvals and inspections have assessed compliance with all aspects of relevant legislation.

Sampling policies, procedures and programmes for food and feeding stuffs have been developed and are being implemented. Adverse food and feeding stuffs sample results are generally followed-up appropriately, although some reports from the Public Analyst that were incorrect had not been corrected.

Officers use a range of informal and formal enforcement options to secure compliance, including letters, voluntary surrenders of food for destruction, hygiene improvement and emergency prohibition notices, and reports to the Procurator Fiscal for prosecution.

Service performance is generally being monitored in accordance with required standards, although food law enforcement monitoring is not meeting the Authority�s standards in some areas.