Food hygiene enforcement actions fall as councils target higher risk venues

The total number of enforcement actions in relation to food hygiene and standards fell by 1.9% from 185,385 to 181,877, the Food Safety Agency has said.

In its Annual report on UK local authority food law enforcement, the FSA also revealed that:

  • Food hygiene interventions decreased by 2.1% from 411,077 to 402,475.
  • Food standards interventions increased by 3.9% from 113,414 to 117,877.
  • Targeting of interventions continued to be for higher risk establishments – Category A to C for food hygiene and Category A for food standards.
  • Seizure, detention and surrender of food decreased by 29.8% from 687 to 482.
  • Remedial action and detention notices increased by 11.1% from 252 to 280.
  • Simple cautions decreased by 29.6% from 439 to 309.
  • Prosecutions decreased by 11.3% from 407 to 361.
  • Written warnings decreased by 1.8% from 177,746 to 174,529.
  • Voluntary closure increased by 12.9% from 969 to 1,094.
  • Emergency prohibition orders increased by 15.5% from 278 to 321.
  • Improvement notices (food hygiene) decreased by 3.3% from 4,513 to 4,366.
  • Prohibition orders increased by 36.3% from 80 to 109.
  • Suspension/revocation of approval or licence increased by 85.7% from 14 to 26.
  • The proportion of rated establishments achieving ‘broad compliance’ increased from 91.7% to 93%.
  • Complaints about the safety and quality of food and the hygiene standards of food establishments increased by 2.9% from 70,522 to 72,558.

The watchdog said the trend for local authorities to target food hygiene and standards activities at higher rights establishments, rather than carrying out due interventions at lower risk establishments, had continued across the UK.

It also noted a further reduction in local authority professional staffing levels, which were down 3.9% on 2013/14 levels. There are now 2,397 FTE professional staff engaged in UK food law enforcement.

David Hart, Head of the FSA's Local Authority Enforcement and Policy Unit, said: “I am pleased to see that the figures this year show business hygiene compliance levels are continuing to improve with 93.0% now broadly compliant with hygiene law - this equates to having a food hygiene rating of 3, 4 or 5. The improvement in broad compliance levels was seen in all four countries.”