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Consultation

The Feed Law Code of Practice and Feed Law Practice Guidance Review (England)

England specific

The Food Standards Agency welcomes stakeholder views on proposals to amend the Feed Law Code of Practice and Practice Guidance. Comments and views are required by 15 December 2017.

Last updated: 12 June 2020
Last updated: 12 June 2020

About this consultation

Who will this consultation be of most interest to? Local authorities (in England). Feed industry stakeholders may also have an interest in relation to the proposed benefits of reduced local authority interventions for lower risk compliant businesses.

This consultation relates only to England. FSA Wales and Food Standards Scotland have their own Codes of Practice. FSA Northern Ireland has a Feed Law Enforcement guidance document.

Subject of consultation

A review of the Feed Law Code of Practice (the Code) and Feed Law Practice Guidance (Practice Guidance) for England.

Direction and guidance on the approach that local authority feed law regulatory services should take is given in a statutory Code of Practice. The Code sets out instructions and criteria to which feed authorities must have regard. The Code requires periodic revision to ensure that it reflects current enforcement practices and supports delivery by local authorities of their official control obligations. It aims to ensure that enforcement is effective, consistent, risk-based and proportionate.

Proposals of this consultation

The FSA welcomes comments and views on its proposals to amend the Code and Practice Guidance, in particular:

  1. Revision and simplification of the Code and Practice Guidance to promote consistency in a number of areas including: earned recognition, authorisation of officers, internal monitoring, approval of premises and service planning;
  2. Reduction in the frequency of official controls at lower risk feed business establishments who are members of a recognised FSA Approved Assurance scheme and achieving at least satisfactory levels of compliance;
  3. Simplification of the Animal Feed Law risk risk-rating system;
  4. Introduction of a National Targeted Monitoring Strategy allowing flexibility in the type and frequency of interventions at low risk compliant livestock and arable farms; and
  5. The removal of the 2 Tier approach to Alternative Enforcement, replaced with an intervention frequency of every 10 years.

Consultation pack

 

England

England

England

Comments should be sent to

Carol Wittrick
Feed and Primary Production Delivery Team
Regulatory Delivery Division
Food Standards Agency
Aviation House
125 Kingsway
London WC2B 6NH

020 7276 8537

Responses are requested by: Friday, 15 December 2017

Background to consultation

The FSA needs to develop an innovative and radically different ‘whole system’ strategy, in respect of feed controls in the face of reduced budgets; the United Kingdom’s impending exit from the European union, in line with the FSA’s ambition to be an ‘excellent accountable modern regulator’ and Regulating Our Future Programme.

We have undertaken a substantive review of the Code and Practice Guidance informed by:

  • the outcomes of 11 local authority audits of official feed controls, in England;
  • an internal FSA review in 2016 which assessed the effectiveness of the New Feed Delivery Model (NFDM) in England;
  • seeking views from Local Authorities through the National Agriculture Panel (NAP) and National Animal Feed Ports Panel (NAFPP) and industry stakeholders.

The overall objective of this initiative is improving consistency of approach to enforcement, reducing the regulatory burden, while maintaining a high level of public and animal protection. The specific policy objectives are to:

  1. drive a flexible and intelligence led approach to interventions, while maintaining an appropriate level of monitoring of compliance;
  2. maintain and enhance the level of public and animal protection by allowing Local Authorities to target resources more effectively on higher risk and non-compliant feed businesses;
  3. promote consistency in Local Authority interpretation and implementation of official feed controls; and promote growth by reducing the burden on compliant businesses.

 

England

England

Publication of response summary

Within three months of a consultation ending we aim to publish a summary of responses received and provide a link to it from this page.

In accordance with the FSA principle of openness we shall keep a copy of the completed consultation and responses, to be made available to the public on request. The summary of responses may include personal data, such as your full name. Disclosure of any other personal data would be made only upon request for the full consultation responses. If you do not want this information to be released, please complete and return the Publication of Personal Data Form. Return of this form does not mean that we will treat your response to the consultation as confidential, just your personal data.

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland

Further information

This consultation has been prepared in accordance with HM Government Consultation Principles. If an Impact Assessment has been produced, this is included in the consultation documents. If no Impact Assessment has been provided, the reason will be given in the consultation document.

Publication of response summary

Within three months of a consultation ending we aim to publish a summary of responses received and provide a link to it from this page.

You can find information on how we handle data provided in response to consultations in our Consultations privacy notice.

Further information

This consultation has been prepared in accordance with HM Government Consultation Principles. If an Impact Assessment has been produced, this is included in the consultation documents. If no Impact Assessment has been provided, the reason will be given in the consultation document.