Examination of Witnesses (Questions 845
- 859)
MONDAY 15 MARCH 1999
MR MICHAEL
ASHLEY, MR
NICK CULL,
MR RON
SHERWOOD, MR
STEVE BUTTERWORTH,
MR BOB
STEVENS and MR
E BRAXTON REYNOLDS
Chairman
845. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Could I
welcome you to the last evidence taking session of this special
Select Committee. I wonder if I could ask you, as a matter for
the record, if you would mind introducing yourselves and the organisations
you represent. Can I start with Mr Braxton Reynolds.
(Mr Braxton Reynolds) Sir, I am Braxton Reynolds,
President of the Association of Public Analysts, Public Analyst
and official Agricultural Analyst for the Counties of Devon and
Cornwall also Torbay and the City of Plymouth.
(Mr Stevens) Bob Stevens, I am Vice President
of the Association of Public Analysts, Public Analyst for the
County of Worcester.
(Mr Cull) Nick Cull, I am an Executive Director
of an organisation with the short name of LACOTS, the long name
is the Local Authorities co-ordinating Body on Food and Trading
Standards. I hope you have received a brief summary of what that
achieves and hope it helps.
(Mr Ashley) I am Michael Ashley, I am the Head
of Environmental Development and Public Protection of the Local
Government Association.
(Mr Butterworth) I am Steve Butterworth, I am
the lead officer on food for the Institute of Trading Standards
Administration and I am Director of Trading Standards and Consumer
Protection in Devon County Council.
(Mr Sherwood) I am Ron Sherwood, a General Councillor
of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, a Member of
the Food and General Health Committee, and an Environmental Health
Officer in Wigan.
Chairman: Thank you
very much. Could I ask Martyn Jones to start.
Mr Jones
846. Thank you, Chairman. It is well known
that food law enforcement and food safety activity is extremely
variable throughout the country and in terms of its enforcement.
In fact, I have had examples cited to me in cities where it can
vary from street to street. One authority can say they want a
tiled surface and another authority in the next street can say
they want a solid painted surface as being a safer situation.
Is this a consequence of limited central guidance, or simply variability
in local emphasis placed on the importance of food safety matters?
(Mr Sherwood) I think the one thing that we would
like to see come out of the Food Standards Agency is an increase
in central guidance, to equalise standards and to aid consistency
of enforcement. I agree with you that at the moment there can
be differences in opinion and differences in interpretation. LACOTS,
as many of you will know, do a lot of work on trying to get consistency
throughout the authorities but additional work in that area certainly
would be welcomed.
(Mr Butterworth) I think that in sharing my colleague's
comments here, there has been a lack of definition of standards
for local authorities and consequently you end up with the situation
that you referred us to earlier. That problem is exacerbated by
the fact that there seems to be a lack of auditing or scrutiny
by MAFF and the Department of Health which picks up on these points
and helps draw these matters to the attention of local authorities
and senior officials within the local authorities. I also think
that whilst there have been sanctions that have been available
within the legislation they have not been applied, so you end
up with a situation where I think local authorities are in a very
difficult situation. There is a call for uniformity and consistency
in the application of the law which is demanded by Government,
and businesses in particular, but local authorities, in trying
to create a new community role, are pushing forward an agenda
of choice and diversity and it is trying to reconcile those two
elements which is the challenge. One of the fundamental roles
of the Food Standards Agency is to remind local authorities they
are a creature of statute and to set out an agenda which has clear
expectations as to the role that local authorities have to play
in the delivering of food law enforcement.
(Mr Cull) Perhaps I can put a slightly different
spin on the question and say that I would not want to say that
there is no variation, of course, I would not want to defend that
at all, but a great deal has been done to promote consistency
and advice. Advice is issued on a daily basis to local authorities.
A great deal has been done to help local authorities achieve common
advice to businesses through regular advisory bulletins to local
authorities, training courses and so on.
(Mr Ashley) Could I add one further point which
is a slightly different angle on consistency which you have raised,
not so much between authorities but over time. One thing that
local authority enforcement officers have found quite difficult
to cope with is the changing expectation of their role over the
last decade. The Food Safety Act of 1990 was a really quite tough
act, a very robust piece of legislation, which then led to some
very good codes for food enforcement. A few years later I think
the deregulatory approach was brought in and that advocated a
much lighter touch in terms of enforcement and I think the enforcement
community has found that change over a period of years quite difficult
to be clear as to exactly what expectations Government and the
general community, including the business community, have of them.
(Mr Braxton Reynolds) There is no doubt within
the framework of the statutory duties that there are certainly
very substantial differences between different authorities. Indeed,
I can say that the Association, assisted by the Royal Society
of Chemistry, has prepared a number of draft questions which it
might very well be that this Committee would find of use. They
specifically focus on the differences which exist between local
authorities and I have a copy here. It is in the usual standard
format, there are something of the order of 66 questions that
have been drafted. If I can hand that in to your Clerk that might
be of some assistance.
847. To go on, on the consultation on the
proposed levy scheme it is stated that food producers, manufacturers
and retailers will all benefit from a new level of consistency
and effective enforcement of food law. How do you believe that
this will be achieved in practice?
(Mr Braxton Reynolds) I think it is probably fair
to say that there will have to be very clear central guidance
and direction as to the service level that is to be required and
expected, that it will have to include both guidance as to the
levels of inspection and quality of training that the inspectors
will have to have. The point was taken earlier in responses from
the previous people you examined about the question of the qualifications
of the inspectors from the Agency and it would be necessary for
there to be very clear objectives in terms of qualifications of
all people who play a part in the regulation of the quality and
safety of food.
848. How do you think that the Food Standards
Agency will perform this monitoring role? If you could add that
to your answers to speed things along. How would they be able
to monitor this?
(Mr Braxton Reynolds) Certainly within the Agency
they will have to have the level of skills in microcosm that exist
in local authorities and vice versa. It will not be a question
of a relationship of individual professions examining themselves
but people with appropriate professional skills providing comparative
examination.
(Mr Cull) To go back to your first question, I
think there is a new era with the Agency coming along. There is
an opportunity to develop new partnerships between Central Government
and local authority delivery mechanisms. Certainly so far as local
government is concerned I believe there is a vast commitment now
to continuing to improve the agenda, the work that has been carried
on over recent years that was described earlier, into new areas.
I think that will contribute to the aims of consistency that everyone
wants to see. I think that would be my answer. On the audit side,
I do not think that audit necessarily should be seen just as something
that is done unto you but something that actually starts within
authorities themselves and clearly part of the management process
of the enforcement authority, indeed any service of public sector
delivery, is to carry out audits themselves, probably management
quality systems that hopefully deliver the sorts of outcomes that
everyone wants, the stated outcomes. After that there already
exists inter-authority auditing which takes place, one authority
auditing the work of another. I would not regard that as comfortable
having been on the receiving end of that from time to time. It
is far from comfortable being told by your peers where you have
got room for improvement. That is the second level. The third,
of course, quite rightly is for the Agency to come along and sample
to make sure that whole system is working properly and to do some
audits themselves. I hope there is a continuity and a consistency
between those three levels.
(Mr Ashley) I very much agree with that last answer.
We do have a new regime that is about to introduced of best value
which will require local authorities to establish very clear standards
themselves and I think the focus then is perfectly properly initially
on self-regulation. Mr Cull has mentioned inter-authority auditing,
peer group review, and groups already exist and have done for
a number of years around the country that engage in that but that
is now a practice that we will have to apply much more generally.
I think we would like to see the Food Standards Agency in terms
of its surveillance, observation, monitoring and auditing, the
actual direct inspection, as being very much a backstop. If the
system that we would like to bring about in terms of a much better
quality self-regulation then the FSA ought to be in the background
ensuring that system of self-regulation is working and stepping
in where it manifestly is not working.
(Mr Butterworth) I would not differ from these
remarks but I would say that from the local authority practitioner
level regulation, whether it is food regulation or any form of
regulation, does not feature highly in any of the primary goals
of local authorities. It may well be that the establishment of
the Agency setting clear and visible standards actually leads
to a situation where perhaps for the first time for many years
consumer protection as an issue features within those corporate
objectives. That would help practitioners on the ground to draw
attention to the fact that local authorities are creatures of
statute and have a responsibility for helping the Government and
the Agency to deliver its agenda but within a local authority
framework. The auditing process needs to be clear, needs to be
transparent, and, yes, there is a role for local authority practitioners
to work with other practitioners in other authorities to try to
deliver best value and value for money. I have to say as well
that this is not just about local authorities, it is about business
and consumers, it is about instilling public confidence in the
food chain. I think there is still an attraction to the public
to have some independent scrutiny and auditing which will bring
failing authorities to account if that is indeed what is necessary.
849. That will be done by the FSA?
(Mr Butterworth) Yes.
(Mr Sherwood) I would not disagree with that at
all. I think one of the extensions to inter-authority auditing
with the FSA would obviously be the potential to second staff,
enforcement officers, from local authorities on to the staff for
fairly short periods. I think that interchange of expertise would
do much to assist both sides and would provide a platform for
monitoring performance between authorities whilst at the same
time remaining fairly independent.
Ms Keeble
850. How do you see the FSA impacting on
the work of LACOTS? How do you see the two organisations actually
working together in practical terms?
(Mr Cull) Hopefully there will be a very large
degree of congruence about what we are both trying to achieve.
LACOTS, at the end of the day, is, and will remain, a local government
body working at a collective level on behalf of local government
and the Agency is a Central Government body. That relationship
is absolutely crucial to make sure that the aims and the purpose
behind the Act are actually put into force. I see a new partnership.
Clearly there will need to be—and that process has already
started—some adjustment of boundaries in some particular
jobs but in the general thrust of things I see that being a healthy
partnership with LACOTS working to provide a conduit of communication
to local authorities, to enable local authorities to do the sorts
of things we have just been discussing, through auditing processes
for example, through the sharing and circulation of information,
bearing in mind that LACOTS' remit is wider than just food, it
is about regulation in the main body of local government and,
therefore, there are other areas with generic issues, some matters
you may have heard of—home authority work and auditing—that
actually run across others. There are some read across opportunities
there. I see a process of developing a new partnership with both
working to develop the aims there, a great deal of partnership
working.
851. Some of the other witnesses might like
to comment on the way that the work is going to divvy up between
Trading Standards Officers, Environmental Health Officers and
the FSA, and in particular how the relationships there are going
to work given that in some authorities, in the unitaries, the
Trading Standards Officers and the EHOs will be employed by the
same people and in some they will be working for different authorities
and the relationship of the division of work between them will
be quite difficult to organise. Do you see that being a problem?
(Mr Cull) Yes, of course, and in some two-tier
authorities there are indeed different authorities involved in
food hygiene work on the one hand and food standards work on the
other. The codes of practice under the existing legislation require
those authorities to co-ordinate and to discuss issues and to
have regular liaison meetings which do take place. Clearly there
is scope for an improvement in the development of that, as always
there is. I think the answer is going to lie in working much harder
to make sure that there is liaison and making sure the information
for best practice and so forth is shared better.
(Mr Stevens) The concept of unitaries is a good
one, the problem is that in practice the majority of unitary authorities
that have been formed have been relatively small and not so able
to do the job as the previous authorities. If I could cite the
case of Berkshire where they had a trading standards operation
that was a flagship almost, a very well established one with good
staff, and that was split up into seven unitary groups and is
simply not performing to the same level as it was before. Staff
have been lost, staff have been downgraded and the function is
not there. Perhaps the unitaries need to be bigger than they are
at present.
852. Do you think there is going to be a
problem of duplication of work in that you can end up having different
people going and doing the checks required by the FSA? You can
have quite a number of different people going to the same supermarket,
say.
(Mr Stevens) There needs to be greater emphasis
on the factory inspection approach whereby a home authority inspecting
a factory from top to bottom thereby can give assurance that that
factory is producing to the requirements of the Agency. That may
minimise duplication which is going to be happening to some extent.
Having said that, I do not think the amount of inspection that
is going on is great enough to actually generate that much duplication,
I think it is a worry that is perhaps being overplayed.
(Mr Butterworth) Just a few points, please. This
is at the heart of making good use of the resources that are already
within local authorities. To some extent we have had our professional
difficulties. There are tensions between the various professions,
that is a fact of life, but we have to move on. The agenda has
been set here by Government and the Food Standards Agency and
that is to put the public interest first. Can I just say that
our responsibility is not just on food labelling, it does actually
touch on areas like animal health and welfare and animal feeding
stuffs where we work with other bodies like the State Veterinary
Service. At the heart of this is the issue of making better use
of the 6,500 practitioners out in the field, the Trading Standards
Officers and Environmental Health Officers. There is a wonderful
opportunity here to look afresh at the issue of competencies of
practitioners because to some extent we both have a responsibility
for dealing with legislation on the basis of quality assurance
and on risk assessment, they are common strands that go through
our work. I would like to see an opportunity for the Food Standards
Agency to say "this is the legislation, these are our demands
on local authorities and as a consequence of that what sorts of
competencies and skills do we need from this enormous resource
within local authorities to help us deliver the agenda and to
enforce the legislation?" Maybe then we could actually build
up a qualification, training and list of competencies that we
could all subscribe to which would hopefully end up with the situation
of us making better use of the very limited resources that we
have at our disposal.
853. I was going to come on to ask about
that. We should talk about the way the FSA will affect the work
of local authority food enforcement officers and the possibility
of tensions given the fact that, as Steven has mentioned, probably
there are not enough inspectors and, as Mr Cull mentioned, on
the food trading standards side you are responsible for everything
from defective toys at Christmas to labelling on a packet of crisps
and so on. The money is not ring-fenced in any way, there is no
SSA for it. Implicitly, I have to say, if the existing mechanism
had worked well we would not need the FSA. How do you think it
is going to work on the ground? Would it not be easier simply
to have a dedicated enforcement team, a food police as it were?
What comments do you have, please?
(Mr Cull) I have just one comment. I understand,
I think, some of the reasons why the Food Standards Agency is
being introduced and I do not think it is solely to resolve all
those problems and inadequacies in local government, but it is
a whole raft of reasons which have been brought in, I understand.
Of course local government needs to improve delivery mechanisms
and I think one would accept that, but I think it is part of a
larger cause.
854. Yes, of course, but what I am concerned
about is whether the work being centred on the part of some of
the local offices is going to get in the way of actually being
able to work and drive standards up.
(Mr Cull) I think, given the sorts of framework
issues we have been talking about today and the more rigorous
setting of standards and auditing commitment from local government,
the points you make are very valid ones, but given that framework,
I believe there is a very good chance of driving forward a large
improvement.
855. Do you think it is adequate to have
the enforcement, which will be critical for the results, done
by people who have other responsibilities as well, where there
are not enough of you anyway, where you have got different lines
of accountability and where standards and attitudes may vary?
(Mr Cull) Local government delivers a lot of things
to national agendas with those accountabilities and I would have
thought that same question could be raised in respect of most
of the things that local government does in one way or another
and providing the checks and balances are there, I believe that
local government has got much to offer in terms of its local access
and knowledge and accountabilities that actually benefit good,
sound and effective enforcement, providing that those other things
are all right.
856. And what are the checks and balances?
(Mr Cull) Well, we have talked about the main
one, being well-defined standards, what we are actually trying
to achieve, the sorts of things that Mike Ashley was talking about,
clarity of the way of doing the job, plus the auditing that goes
with that.
(Mr Ashley) There is, I think, a tension which
in a sense Mr Cull was referring to in a lot of local government
services between the generic approach and a more specialised approach.
We have seen that perhaps particularly in social services and
it has been true in environmental health over many years. Some
people will argue for the value of the generic broadly-trained
officer who can then go into a number of situations and there
are definite advantages in terms of a single point of contact
type of approach with benefits, I think, to the person being monitored
or enforced. On the other hand, I think now that there is much
greater concern over the last few years in terms of food control
and food standards, I think the pendulum looks as if it is beginning
to shift away from that generic approach back towards the kind
of concerns that you were raising, namely the need for more specialised
officers who will concentrate exclusively or almost exclusively
on food. I do not think we, the LGA, have a particular view on
that, but I think the way things are moving in terms of both central
and local government and the general public now becoming more
concerned, it does seem to me that that pendulum is beginning
to swing back towards a more specialised approach.
857. Has anyone else got any specific comments?
(Mr Butterworth) Just to add to what Mike said,
which is that I think that this to some extent reinforces the
message I have been trying to get across that this is not about
us, the professional disciplines, but it is about putting the
public interest first, and if we have an investment in training
and the consequence of which is to have one qualification for
these practitioners, then what we will have is a food inspectorate
out in the local authorities there delivering the Government's
agenda, making the legislation work which puts our professional
interests to one side, and puts the public interest first and
foremost. There is still an issue out there in the field and it
is one which to some extent brought about the review of MAFF's
role in all of this, namely whether they were in a position to
serve both the interests of the public, the consumer and the industry
at large. Now, MAFF's predicament has been resolved, it is hoped,
by the creation of the Agency, but it still remains an issue within
local authorities because if we have an issue which we may need
to raise in our local area, and that is an issue which ought to
be brought to the attention of consumers, it may of course be
a situation which could be prejudicial to the local economy, in
which case we have got those sort of factors to take into consideration
in determining whether or not it is a message we can put out without
risking our own position within that local authority.
858. Do you think that the powers given
to the FSA in clause 16, which I think is the one where they take
over control from under-performing authorities, and somebody mentioned
under-performing authorities, do you think that that is going
to hamper working practices or do you think that that is actually
a necessary measure and in what kind of circumstances would you
see it possibly being used? I see LACOTS have got some quite trenchant
comments about it—I think it is that same clause—in
your evidence.
(Mr Cull) I think, together with the LGA, we have
got some views, and it might perhaps be more appropriate for Mike
Ashley to explain them, around the way in which those powers might
be used, but the fact is, as I think somebody else said, that
if there is a clear understanding of what the job is and that
job is not being done, there is a reasonable way of getting to
the point of saying, "You have failed. You are failing and
you have failed". It is quite difficult to argue with the
principle, but it is just the application of that principle, I
think.
859. Excuse me if I have missed something,
but who do you think should draw up the specifications? Do you
think those should be jointly done?
(Mr Ashley) Yes, our view is that we would like
to see the maximum amount of partnership work here in trying to
draw up agreed standards. We have no problem at all with the concept
of tough, centrally provided standards, but we would very much
like to be involved obviously in their specifications, as you
put it, and again we have no problem at all about back-stop powers,
but they do need to be seen as powers of last resort which we
would prefer retained by the Minister directly rather than by
the FSA. I think if a function is to be removed from a democratically-elected
local authority, and we certainly accept that in extremis
that may have to happen if all other attempts at improvement fail,
then it seems to me that that is something that the Minister obviously
on advice ought to have to take directly.
|
