North Somerset Borough Council

The authority did not have a service delivery plan 2007/2008 for food standards or feed enforcement controls. The Food Safety Service Plan 2007/2008, although consistent with Agency Service Planning Guidance, had not been approved at Member level until February 2008.

Enforcement staff were properly authorised according to their qualifications and experience. However, the authority recognised that authorisation procedures were in need of review to maintain consistency.

The authority had allocated two Full Time Equivalents (FTEs) to carry out the full range of food standards and feed law enforcement duties including inspection, sampling and any reactive work such as complaints and home authority referrals. 5.8 FTEs had been allocated to carry out the full range of food hygiene enforcement duties.

At the time of the audit, the trading standards team was carrying out only high risk premises inspections. Therefore medium and low risk premises inspections were not being undertaken at the frequency required by the food and feed law codes of practice.

The trading standards team had a documented system for document control enabling staff to access up to date legislation, codes and guidance from the database on a 'read only' basis. The food and safety team had a more informal system of document control, based on team briefings and information sharing amongst officers.

In addition to its responsibility for imported food and feed controls at Royal Portbury Docks, Bristol Port Health Authority has responsibility for imported food and feed controls at Bristol International Airport. However, the authority did not have any documented systems or procedures to systematically monitor and identify imported food and feed arriving at Royal Portbury Dock and Bristol International Airport.

Both the food and safety team and the trading standards team had documented inspection procedures. In addition, the Trading Standards Team had a documented procedure for feed premises inspections. However, the procedures required updating to take account of new legislation and codes of practice.

The authority did not have a documented sampling policy although a feed and food sampling programme had been implemented. However, there was no evidence that the feed sampling programme had been compiled using a risk based approach.

The food and safety team had documented procedures for monitoring inspections and performance review. The trading standards team did not have a written procedure but in practice carried out a similar system. Both teams carried out monthly monitoring of inspection figures, sampling and complaints. However, there was little evidence of any qualitative monitoring such as the checking of inspection forms or premises records.