Audit of Borders Food Law service uncovers serious weaknesses

EXCLUSIVE by DOUGLAS SHEPHERD

Auditors who carried out an inspection of Scottish Borders Council's Food Law enforcement service identified serious weaknesses in a department understaffed by more than 50 per cent as a result of recruitment issues.

Scottish Government agency Food Standards Scotland has published the findings of its first audit of the Borders regime since 2016. While a number of recommendations have been implemented following the audit in early 2022 there are a number of passages in the document which appear to give cause for concern.

In a section headed Level of Assurance the auditors use generous helpings of red ink to state: "Insufficient Assurance Controls are not acceptable and have notable weaknesses. There are significant weaknesses in the current risk, governance and/or control procedures, to the extent that the delivery of objectives is at risk. Exposure to the weaknesses identified is sizeable and requires urgent mitigating action."

The main aim of the so-called Capacity and Capability Audit is to maintain and improve consumer protection and confidence by ensuring that local authorities are providing an effective food law enforcement service.  

Specifically, this audit aimed to evaluate the organisational, management and information systems in place to ensure they are effective and suitable to achieve the objectives of the relevant food law; assess the capacity and capability of the council to deliver the food service; and provide a means to identify under performance in local authority food law enforcement systems.

According to the report on SBC: "Currently, the team leader is supported by two Environmental Health Officers and one Food Safety Officer. The total number of officers in the team equates to a total of 2.5 Full Time Equivalents (FTEs). At present, the team is operating with an over 50% deficit in personnel. The total allocated operational FTE within the planned structure is 5.5."

On capacity the audit found that the council's current resource for conducting a full programme of official controls was insufficient.

"The authority has not produced a current Service Delivery Plan. The Service plan provided for the purposes of the audit was last updated in 2019 and therefore is no longer relevant or current. The accuracy of the Management Information System [MIS] was difficult to establish during the audit.

"A number of different spreadsheets were provided with different figures which the Auditors were unable to verify. The authority was not able to provide a full database download of all registered food establishments, with risk ratings and dates of last and due interventions."

So far as capability is concerned the auditors' report comments: "The authority has not implemented in full the Food Law Rating System as required by the Interventions Food Law Code of Practice 2019 and the LA [Local Authority] Recovery Process. The intervention programme provided was incomplete and not produced in line with the LA Recovery Process. Interventions in some approved establishments have not been completed at the required frequencies and a number of interventions are overdue." 

It was difficult to attain an accurate record of the number of registered Borders food establishments during the audit. A number of different spreadsheets were provided, each with different figures. These did not match data held on the Scottish National Database and as a result, auditors were unable to verify the information. The Authority was not able to provide a full database download of all registered food establishments, with risk ratings and dates of the last and due interventions.

"It became apparent during the audit that there is difficulty with generating management reports from the LA’s Management Information System (MIS) due to the lack of experienced staff trained in the MIS. There is a lack of administration support for the food team and the expertise in running and accessing the MIS appear to sit out with the team in another department. The proposed new Enterprise system should improve the ability to run reports from the MIS but it would be beneficial if officers within the Food and Health and Safety team received training to allow them to run MIS reports rather than rely on persons out with the service."

An intervention programme was created and restarted on the 1st of September 2021, however, it became apparent during the audit that not all food establishments had been included in the intervention programme, and there was a portion of approximately 800 premises which were currently sitting outside of the programme with no risk rating. 

"The Auditors were informed that these premises were allocated to an officer last year to complete the desktop transfer to the Food Law Rating System (FLRS), (Step 1 of the recovery process) which was started but was not finished due to the officer leaving."

Food Standards Scotland also explain in the report that taken from the spreadsheets provided, a total of 104 planned interventions and 64 new business interventions had been completed to date. There were  81 overdue interventions on the current programme dated up until the 28th of February 2022. 

"Unfortunately, due to the way in which the spreadsheets were provided, the Auditors were unable to determine whether planned interventions were being completed on time (within 28 days of the planned date of inspection) in accordance with the Food Law Code of Practice. The spreadsheets on interventions completed did not show the date the intervention was completed and therefore the Auditors were unable to assess if these had been completed on time. Evidence indicated that on some occasions the period of time between interventions in approved establishments has and is exceeding 12 months. This is not in compliance with SBC’s own procedures on approved establishments."

Scottish Borders Council did not provide its internal monitoring procedure at the time of Audit. An internal monitoring procedure for programmed food inspections last reviewed in 2015 was provided after the Audit. However, it was noted that no evidence of the procedure being in practice was identified during the audit. 

"There was a notable lack of evidence provided to demonstrate regular qualitative or quantitative internal monitoring of food law interventions carried out by officers. The intervention programme is not being routinely monitored. Some policies and procedures are documented but have not been reviewed, maintained and/or approved (where required). 

"Fifteen out of seventeen policies and procedures requested for the audit remain outstanding for one or more of the above reasons. A timetable to review all policies and procedures is required, for which the authority is aware and is already starting to put plans in place for."