Joint Food and Health and Safety Service Plan 2025 to 2026

The Environmental Health Service has a significant role to play in improving quality of life within Buckinghamshire, predominantly through providing a proactive, accessible and efficient service that protects and promotes the health of those who work, live and visit the area.

The Food Standards Agency set out a recovery plan for re-starting food safety interventions following the impact of COVID-19 and the cessation of inspections and closure of businesses. The Recovery Plan provided a framework up to March 2023 for the inspection of new food establishments and high-risk and non-compliant establishments while providing flexibility for lower risk establishments.

By the end of March 2023, we were successful in meeting the key requirements of the Recovery Plan. However, since the focus was on those businesses that posed a greater risk to food safety, those businesses that were lower risk were not inspected. This approach was consistent with the approach taken by most local authorities but has led to a backlog of inspections of our lower risk businesses. This has been highlighted by the Food Standards Agency and it will be a key priority to address their concerns. Whilst the focus will be on addressing the shortfall, the triaging of new businesses will continue to be a priority, as will the inspection of those businesses that pose a higher risk to food safety.

Progress is also being made to integrate the previous district council’s legacy information management systems in order to streamline the allocation and management of casework and management reporting. The expected completion date for the migration of data this is December 2025, and the next phase will include harmonised monitoring and back office processes.

In addition, our service priorities continue to be the following:

• to create a high performing service in line with the Council’s aspirations and vision.
• to ensure a consistent approach to interventions and enforcement across the service
• to authorise officers according to their competencies and qualifications in line with the FSA Competency Framework
• to develop policies and procedures, and in particular those relating to food safety, health and safety and enforcement action
• to participate in the cross-authority liaison groups and to carry out targeted food safety and health and safety interventions at large events such as the F1 British Grand Prix at Silverstone
• to ensure that the General Safety Certificate for Wycombe Wanderers Football Club is issued at the start of the 2025/26 football season and monitor compliance
• to manage and maintain the existing partnership relationships with larger national companies as part of the Primary Authority Partnership Scheme
• to manage the efficient and timely issuing of export health certificates for local businesses to facilitate international trade
• to participate in the UKHSA food sampling programme based on local and national priorities
• to undertake topic-based projects relating to health and safety based on local intelligence and national priorities
• to provide informed and helpful advice to businesses and the public alike on matters relating to food and health and safety
• to ensure that interventions are carried out commensurate with the principles of risk, at food premises within the district, ensuring compliance with the relevant food laws
• to ensure food complaints are investigated as appropriate
• to act on food safety alerts promptly and in a manner that is proportionate to the risks involved

As part of the authority’s key objectives, service standards and performance measures have been set.

Services are prioritised and resources targeted at issues of greatest concern in terms of food and health and safety. The service covers inspections of businesses, complaint and accident investigation and developing schemes to assist and motivate businesses to achieve compliance and good practice. The key performance measures used are:

• ‘Number of new registered food businesses that are trading awaiting an inspection’ (this provides a measure of additional workload above that of the annual inspection programme).
• Percentage of food hygiene interventions completed (A-C rated premises) against the total due in the annual inspection plan (this provides a measure of the progress in meeting the annual inspection programme for high-risk food businesses).
• ‘The number of category D, E and unrated food businesses awaiting an inspection when due’ (this provides a measure of the impact of financial and resources constraints on the ability to deliver the service effectively).

As a consequence of Government’s aims for health and safety reform including reducing the inspection burden on business and focussing on better health and safety outcomes, proactive inspections will be targeted at high-risk premises where the national priorities identify them as being an at-risk sector or local intelligence identifies businesses with poor compliance history or a particular sector specific issue in the county.

The work of the Environmental Health Commercial Team strongly contributes towards the refreshed Council's Corporate Plan 2020 to 2026, which outlines the ambitions and priorities for Buckinghamshire.

Strengthening our communities: the service will contribute towards this priority by:

• ensuring we are delivering services to all communities equitably, proportionately, and consistently
• providing help, advice and support to consumers to protect health and promote healthier lifestyles and consumer choice e.g. Food Hygiene Rating Scheme
• providing transparent, robust and consistent approaches to investigating and resolving consumer complaints about food and food businesses
• providing transparent, robust and consistent approaches to investigating and resolving complaints from members of the public/users of publicly accessible facilities
• providing transparent, robust and consistent approaches to investigating and resolving employee complaints about their working environment and investigating accidents to prevent further occurrence
• taking part in national food sampling programmes and taking action to remove unsafe food from the market
• working towards increasing overall food hygiene ratings for food businesses, thereby protecting food consumers.
• investigating substantiated food poisoning allegations and notified food poisoning outbreaks.

Protecting the vulnerable: the service will contribute towards this priority by:

• carrying out interventions prioritised by risk and regulate to help ensure that all businesses are providing a safe environment for customers and employees
• investigating accidents in a timely manner to identify not only non-compliance but the root cause of the accident to prevent future occurrences
• working towards increasing overall food hygiene ratings for food businesses, thereby protecting all food consumers, and particularly those more vulnerable
• investigating single cases of specific infectious diseases where this involves a person within a vulnerable group
• supporting the Holiday Activities and Food Programme (HAF) which provides free holiday activities and a healthy hot meal for children in Reception to Year 11 who receive benefits-related free school meals
• increasing awareness of modern-day slavery and being vigilant for potential exploitation of employees and residents

Improving our environment: the service will contribute towards this priority by:

• carrying out waste and pest enforcement and education during visits to food businesses, ensuring that adequate provisions have been put in place
• encouraging event organisers to consider the impact of their event on local communities and where possible, to encourage alternative means of transport to and from events
• delivering services in an efficient, cost-effective manner and encouraging officers to be mindful of their own environmental impact when planning their work

Increasing prosperity: the service will contribute towards this priority by:

• identifying the need to ensure a consistent, proportionate and fair approach to enforcement and to create a level playing field for all businesses across the district
• working towards increasing overall food hygiene ratings for food businesses within the county, thereby improving their reputation and appeal to consumers
• delivering support, signposting and tailored advice to new and existing businesses to help them comply with relevant legislation
• targeting interventions at lower food hygiene rated businesses to encourage improvement and to help facilitate their presence on online delivery platforms and to increase their customer base
• supporting businesses through Primary Authority Partnership arrangements to ensure they get assured and consistent advice on regulatory compliance
• processing export health certificates in a timely manner to facilitate the smooth export of goods produced within the county
• supporting event organisers, through the Safety Advisory Group process, to provide safe events for workers and attendees, reducing the impact of an event on the local community and to demonstrate that Buckinghamshire is a great place to hold events