Agenda item

The Director Worcestershire Regulatory Services (WRS) presented the Food Service and Food Standards Agency (FSA) engagement report, for Members consideration.

As detailed in the report, the Agency was the main competent authority for food controls in England. The Agency had been pushing local authorities in recent years to increase their commitments to food law enforcement and to align activities more closely with the letter of the Food Law Code of Practice issued under section 40 of the Food Safety Act 1990.

This initially led to an increase in WRS establishment from 1^st April 2024 of 5 full-time equivalent (FTE) on food work. The Agency continued to monitor the levels of performance and continued to raise concerns in the autumn, with threats to escalate their engagement process. Members were alerted of this at the November Board meeting where the budget was agreed with a caveat that officers may need to look at a further uplift in capacity. After engagement with senior officers and lead Members, WRS partners agreed to a further uplift in the WRS budget specifically for Food Safety Act enforcement.

This report explained the detail of this and how the additional expenditure would be deployed.

Members were made aware of the on-going engagement with the FSA during the November Board meeting. At that time, officers explained that in their most recent engagement with the Agency, it had become very clear that anything less that wholesale compliance or evidence of attempts to operate to full compliance with the Food Standards Agency Code of Practice would not be welcomed and challenge would continue.

Also at the November Board meeting, officers explained that they would be creating a revised action plan for the Agency which would hopefully address their concerns but as part of this they would also be looking at a time and motion document created by the Agency to get a clearer understanding of what resourcing might be required. Officers also agreed to look at staffing in our neighbouring county areas with those districts, to see if WRS were on a par with them.

As detailed on page 28 of the main agenda pack, the time and motion document had indicated that there was still a shortfall in necessary resourcing to deliver fully on the Code of Practice. It also appeared that the service had fewer officers than the collective Environmental Health services in either Warwickshire or Gloucestershire for delivering these activities

As previously explained to Members, the Agency’s view was that authorities with:

• 250 food premises per dedicated FTE were well resourced and likely to achieve Code requirements.
• 350 food premises per dedicated FTE would be stretched in achieving Code requirements.
• 450 premises or more per dedicated FTE would flounder and not achieve Code requirements.

Members were further informed that the current allocation in WRS with the additional posts put the service at around 420 premises per FTE (around 13FTE being available for food hygiene work.) At the November Board meeting, the  Director, WRS had provided Members with an example of the approximate costs of adding 3FTE Technical Officers to the establishment for food hygiene work. Adding this to the establishment would reduce the number of premises per FTE to just below the 350 premises figure and bring the service more in line with the collective provision in our two county neighbours.

On that basis, discussions had taken with the senior Partner Officers of the Board and given the relatively modest uplifts entailed, it was agreed that this could be built into the medium-term financial plans for the six partner authorities.

Senior Members were made aware and agreed to this course of action. This now left the need for Board Members to formally agree to the increase in establishment, which would then allow the Community Environmental Health (CEH) Manager to begin the process of recruitment to the newly created vacancies.

These new posts would be integrated into the two geographically arranged CEH Commercial units covering the east and west halves of the county, with their work areas divided along district lines (Malvern Hills, Worcester City, Wyre Forest, and Redditch. Bromsgrove, Wychavon.)

In their latest response to the submission of the revised action plan, The FSA Officer who had been liaising with WRS officers, had said, 

“Thank you for your email and for the additional information provided which gives clear milestones in relation to clearing your backlog of interventions alongside those that become due in the programme for 25/26 and appears to be a realistic and achievable plan with the staff you will have in place. We will monitor your progress against the milestones using the data provided in the 6 monthly enforcement returns; I may also contact you between returns for an update. I would be grateful if you anticipate a deviation from the plan if you could let us know.”

Since the Agency appeared to now believe that WRS had a realistic and achievable plan with the additional resources we would have in place, then they would mainly rely on the 6-monthly reporting that all local authorities were required to provide to assess our performance, it was hoped that WRS would be allowed to proceed with the work.

Board Members would no doubt want to be kept abreast of developments, so managers would look to further enhance the information provided as part of the quarterly reporting to the Board to ensure that Members could be confident of the progress against the plan and that the additional resources were working as was anticipated. As Members would no doubt recall from last time, bringing new staff into these roles was not straight-forward, so there may be a lag in getting permanent people into roles, but the service would be able to retain the services of competent Agency staff to help fill the gap for this period.

Members were therefore being asked to endorse the increase in establishment as outlined in the report. The details of the increase in budget was outlined below.

Appendix: Cost and impact on Partner Contributions

Officers felt that this would be sufficient, given that Members had received and approved a full budget paper at the November Board meeting, and that the overall value involved was modest compared to the full budget.

The following sums, as detailed above, would be added to the base budget to cover the cost of the additional 3 posts. The total included an allowance for car allowance, IT equipment and training requirements to maintain competence.

Members referred to the November Board meeting minutes which referred to  trainees or modern apprenticeships being taken on.

In response the Director, WRS explained that officers had wanted to recruit experienced officers, however, this was not achievable, officers would look at modern apprenticeships or potential graduates. The Director, WRS explained that a number of the universities offering Environmental Health degrees had modified their courses to act as apprenticeships to allow training to be covered by Apprentice Levy funding. The University of Wolverhampton was identified as the nearest offering this approach and could be considered if necessary.

In response to questions from Members about agency staff being utilised should it take time to recruit into the roles; the Director, WRS, explained that agency staffing costs would be roughly double the cost on an officer directly employed, therefore officers would only ideally use agency staff for a period of 6 months, and no longer. It was highlighted that, as with previous agency staff, officers would look to recruit agency staff who were interested in the role and had the ability and skillset to take on a permanent role.

RESOLVED that

1.1           the report be noted, and

1.2           Members agree the consequent increase in establishment that flows from the funding uplift as agreed by the partners.