Fife (Core Audit)

Fife Council is a Scottish Unitary Local Authority which has responsibility for food hygiene, food standards and feeding stuffs official controls in its district.

Approximately 3,400 businesses in the Authority’s area are subject to food law official controls. There are also 172 registered premises that are subject to official controls for feeding stuffs.

The Authority has a Service Plan covering official controls for food and feeding stuffs that generally meets the requirements of the Service Planning Guidance in the Framework Agreement, although it has not been approved, and an annual review based on the previous Service Plan had not been completed and reported to the appropriate Member forum at the time of the audit.

Documented policies and procedures that have been produced are generally comprehensive and concise, although in relation to food law official controls there is no effective system for controlling documents, resulting in some being out of date and in need of review and updating.

Although suitably qualified authorised officers and inspectors have been appointed to enforce food and feeding stuffs law, the number of officers appears to be insufficient to ensure that food law official controls are conducted in accordance with requirements of the Food Law Code of Practice.

Training records of food law enforcement officers are not sufficient to demonstrate that they all receive continuing development training in accordance with the Food Law Code of Practice, some food law regulations are not included in officers’ authorisations, and there is no documented training programme.

Some food hygiene and food standards premises inspections are not being conducted at the required minimum frequencies, and some food businesses have not been included in the planned food standards inspection programme.

Food and feeding stuffs sampling programmes have been developed and are being implemented.

Officers use informal and formal enforcement options to secure compliance, including letters, hygiene improvement notices, remedial action notices, voluntary closures, voluntary surrenders of food for destruction, and reports to the Procurator Fiscal.

Post-inspection reports clearly differentiate between recommendations and legal requirements, although some do not indicate the time scale for compliance.

Service performance has been monitored in the past, but monitoring had virtually ceased at the time of the audit.