Feedback to the Food Standards Agency

6.1   The majority of LAs thought that Recovery Plan was easy to understand and gave clear guidance on what was expected during the recovery period. LAs also found that the associated Q&A document to be a useful resource that answered many of their queries.

6.2    LAs felt the Recovery Plan allowed them to build on the risk-based approach they had used to deliver official food controls during the earlier stages of the pandemic. They also felt the Recovery Plan milestones and expectations were reasonable and achievable.  LAs made the following suggestions for improving the Recovery Plan: 

• increased use of pictorial references would be beneficial
• some LAs requested more direct contact between LAs and the FSA to discuss food related matters
• a request for more clarity on the FSA expectations for remote interventions
• some LAs thought that there should have been more flexibility in the Recovery Plan milestones in response to the later COVID-19 Omicron strain, as some LAs had to divert key staff longer than originally anticipated. Milestone changes would have helped
• greater clarity on food sampling requirements, for example, how much sampling and what type (whether proactive and/or reactive) was required
• some LAs felt that the Recovery Plan requirements could have been clearer, as not all requirements were referenced in the ‘Outline of the Recovery Plan’ in figure 1
• clarity on whether low-risk new food businesses need to be included within the intervention programme in Phase 2
• further clarification on the interventions required for food businesses impacted by the new requirements on allergen labelling for products prepacked for direct sale