Meeting documents

To consider the attached report.

Contact Officer:  Lindsey Vallis (01296) 585152

Under European food law the Food Standards Agency (FSA) was deemed to be the competent authority.  To ensure these powers were exercised consistently across the country by local authorities the FSA had developed a framework agreement, part of which included the production by each local authority of a food service plan.

Service plans were seen as an important part of the process to ensure that national priorities and standards were addressed and delivered locally.  The details to be contained in the plan were specified by the FSA.  Plans had to contain the following information:-

·         Service Aims and Objectives.

·         Background.

·         Service Delivery.

·         Resources.

·         Quality Assessment.

·         Review.

The Committee received a report on the plan which had the Aylesbury Vale Food Service Plan for 2017-18 attached as an appendix.  The key features of the Plan included:-

·         There were 1786 registered food businesses in Aylesbury Vale; an increase of 62 since last year.

·         Premises were given a risk rating, A to E with resources targeted to ensure higher risk premises (A, B, Non-compliant C and Unrated) inspected in accordance with the FSA Code of Practice.

·         The number of premises which were deemed to be "broadly compliant" with the law was 97.5%.

·         In 2016/17 93% of Officer programmed interventions were carried out. 99.7% of premises inspections rated A- non compliant C were achieved.

·         Areas of improvement or exploration had been identified to improve efficiency and to ensure the best service was being offered to customer. These included:

a.    Consider the opportunities around the changes to primary authority scheme in October 2017 to make it more straightforward for smaller businesses (who are currently ineligible to apply) to setup a partnership with us.

b.    Work closer with colleagues in Economic Development and Buckinghamshire Business First to encourage those food businesses based in AVDC to develop partnerships.

c.    Adapt food business registration form as required to promote range of ‘opt in’ services as discussed above such as new food business advice, primary authority options and promotion of other Council chargeable services

d.    Explore opportunities under the Localism Act to provide advisory services to new food business that we can charge for as part of an ‘opt in’ package of benefits

e.    Ensure the benefits of Salesforce was maximised at the customer facing end so that customers were encouraged to register their food business when applications for other services that are food related eg Premises Licence Applications

f.     Explore the potential to deliver a pilot business project based on the principles of Better Business For All that builds on and maximizes AVDC’s relationships with local business.

Members sought further information and were advised:-

      i.        Plans to mandatorily show ‘Scores on the Doors’ in England had been held back. It was expected that this would not change for the next three – four years. It was also noted that the ‘Scores on the Doors’ system related to food hygiene, not food quality.

     ii.        The report is a necessity under European Food Law so the impact of Brexit was yet to be determined.

    iii.        The relationship with Arla had been good from planning to set-up, and training had been organised to demonstrate milk handling practice to other authorities. The relationship now was described as ‘business as usual.’

   iv.        That it was understood that a balance needed to be struck between providing standard free of charge advice and charging for services. Further investigation would be undertaken in order to provide an attractive package to business that provided optional add-on services.

    v.        Member concerns of a conflict of interest were understood, however the commercial element would not take away from the statutory, free services.

   vi.        The Officer structure had not changed. Although recruitment had been frozen during the staffing programme, two out of three roles had been recruited with October and November starts scheduled. Although multi-disciplinary, Officers in post were encouraged to develop themselves and achieve qualifications.

  vii.        ‘Broadly Compliant’ was an FSA prescribed term, as was businesses types. It was commented that farms would not be listed unless they sold from the site.

Members agreed that the proposed commercial activities of the Food Service Plan needed to be looked at in future at Committee when more information was available.

RESOLVED –

That the 2017-18 Food Service Plan be noted and that comments from Members be considered in future food service plans.