Joint Food and Health and Safety Service Plan 2025 to 2026

The food and health and safety service is delivered by a specialist Commercial Team who are responsible for undertaking food safety and health and safety interventions, investigations of accidents and hygiene complaints, some nuisance complaints linked to commercial premises, skin piercing registrations, food poisoning outbreaks and sporadic infectious disease cases and provide support and advice to businesses and participate in the primary authority partnership scheme. The Team is divided geographically and is comprised of an Environmental Health Manager, 2 team leaders, 11.8 Environmental Health Practitioners/Food and Health and Safety Officers and Technical Enforcement Officers), supported by 0.45 FTE Administrative Officers.

All officers are authorised in accordance with an assessment of their individual competencies and qualifications and in accordance with the FSA Food Law - Code of Practice and Section 18. A record of authorisation for each individual is kept and any training and competency issues are dealt with throughout the year.

Contractors engaged in food or safety interventions will be appointed and authorised in accordance with the authorisation procedures and must demonstrate their competence to the satisfaction of the relevant codes of practice. During 2024/25 contractors were employed to undertake food hygiene inspections, primarily in relation to the backlog of category D businesses and address the resource shortage arising from vacant posts being recruited to.

The Food Standards Agency has introduced a Competency Framework for officers who are responsible for undertaking official controls. All officers authorised to carry out official control interventions will be required to complete the Competency Framework and any gaps will form part of their personal development plan. Officers have passed the Food Competent Certifying Officer (FCCO) qualification which enable them to authorise export health certificates.

The Council has a quarterly goal setting and review process and two 6-monthly formal appraisals at which time any training and development needs are formally identified and incorporated into a training plan. Throughout the year, core courses are identified, and staff allocated to attend as necessary. Staff have increasing access to online training and webinars. Not only does this plan reflect the business needs of the service, but it also provides for the personal development of individual officers. The Food Standards Agency’s Competency Framework has been used to identify individual competencies and training and knowledge gaps.

All training undertaken is reviewed as to its usefulness and practical applications and feedback to other officers is done during team meetings.

Following each review meeting, officers may be set more specific, short-term goals, whether this be work-related or for personal development. Staff are encouraged to stretch themselves and so they may be asked to present to team members on a particular topic or lead on a specific intervention project or campaign. These are reviewed on an on-going basis and as part of the annual appraisal.

The budget for the Commercial team activities is comprised of a number of elements, the greatest of which is staffing costs (95.3%). The total expenditure budget is in the region of £948,706 (total budget £1,004,706).

Microbiological analysis is undertaken by the UKHSA who has agreed an allocation of sampling credits based on one food sampling unit per 1000 head residential population which equates to 15,633 credits. There is also a budget of £200 for ‘paid-for’ samples.

The officers involved in the food service are provided with any equipment that is deemed necessary for them to carry out their duties effectively and efficiently. This includes appropriate personal protective equipment, inspection equipment including thermometers and sampling equipment and iPads. A record of equipment allocated to staff is listed in an equipment inventory, which will also include a record of the necessary calibration and service checks.

The Service currently operates three versions of a software packages as a consequence of legacy systems which are used to log complaints, investigations and inspections. A software package is also used to provide consistency in enforcement notices, and a library of guidance and information on various topics.

All documents are scanned and linked to the business record which provides a more efficient management of information and data and improved access to information and business history.

2024/25 saw the process of moving onto a single information management system commence. This will improve access to the data held and improve consistency in the way it is recorded. The expected completion date is December 2025.