Issue - meetings

In compliance with national monitoring arrangements, this report sets out how the Council intends to discharge its statutory responsibilities in respect of food hygiene in the year 2026-2027 and reports on activities in the previous year.

Following Consideration the Committee resolved to:

(1)       Adopt the service plan for food hygiene.

The Committee considered a report that in compliance with national monitoring arrangements, set out how the Council intended to discharge its statutory responsibilities in respect of food hygiene in the year 2026-2027 and reported on activities in the previous year.

The following matters were considered:

a)             Overdue Inspections: A Member asked why there were 74 overdue inspections in the current year and why the statutory service was not able to meet demand. The Public Protection Manager explained that this was not an unusual situation for a local authority. In this case the overdue were mainly for category E premises (ex: sweet shops, domestic home caterers) which have been deprioritised in favour of higher risk food outlets. In the service area of environmental health, as in other authorities, there was a tug of war between various statutory requirements and therefore priority is given to higher risk areas as written in the policy.

b)             Audit and Action Plan: A Member asked when the service was last audited and asked where to find the Food Standards Agency Action Plan and what interventions did it contain.  The Public Protection Manager stated that the service was audited in the last four years but would give exact date after the meeting.  He also stated that the intervention plan was freely available and again would send this to Committee Members following the meeting.

Following Consideration the Committee resolved to (5 for and 1 against):

(1)       Adopt the service plan for food hygiene.

Councillor Julie Morris did not return to the meeting for this item.