Joint Food and Safety Service Business Plan 2024 to 2025

The food and health and safety service is delivered by a specialised Commercial Team who are responsible for:

• undertaking food safety and health and safety interventions
• investigations of accidents and hygiene complaints
• nuisance complaints linked to commercial premises
• skin piercing registrations
• food poisoning outbreaks
• sporadic infectious disease cases
• providing support and advice to businesses
• participating in the primary authority partnership scheme

The team is divided geographically North and South and is comprised of:

• an Environmental Health Manager
• 2 team leaders
• 10.8 Environmental Health Officers and Food and Health and Safety Officers

The team is 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 2023 to 2024 contractors were employed to undertake food hygiene inspections, primarily in relation to new businesses.

A resource assessment has been undertaken and a staff reorganisation is being implemented to ensure the necessary number of authorised officers required to deliver the food service plan.

The Food Standards Agency, as part of their revision of the Code of Practice, 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 recently 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 2 6-monthly formal appraisals at which time any training and development needs are 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, 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 (96.2%). The total expenditure budget is in the region of £880,000 (total budget £830,242).

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 to be listed in an equipment inventory, which will also include a record of the necessary calibration and service checks.

The service currently operates 2 software packages as a consequence of legacy systems. These are Salesforce and IDOX Uniform database and management systems and are used to log complaints, investigations and inspections. We also use RIAMS supplied by RHE Ltd to provide consistency in enforcement notices and which also provides 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.

In May 2024, the department will begin the process of moving to a single information management system. This will provide an opportunity to review IT work practices and streamline their use and overcome the operational constraints on using separate systems for management reporting and work allocation. The expected completion date will be August 2025.

From 2023 to 2024 several corporate IT projects were completed which brought together a number of legacy systems. Relevant to the Commercial Team was the development of common web pages, online forms and payments. This included an online application process for skin piercing registrations, booking of food hygiene courses and requesting FHRS re-inspections. We have also developed SharePoint as the portal for Safety Advisory Group notifications and consultations.

As part of our commitment to continuous service improvement, the use of software to develop templates for paperless inspection checklists and inspection reports for businesses was rolled out. Not only has this facilitated a more efficient use of officer’s time but also provides a clearer way of highlighting the key issues to food businesses that need to be actioned. These templates continue to be developed and now include templates for verification visits, sampling and health and safety projects. We have also been approached by other teams and neighbouring authorities to demonstrate their use and the benefits we have seen.