The new data show:

• food hygiene compliance in food establishments has remained stable at 90% since 2016/17
• the percentage of due food hygiene interventions achieved, which covers food safety, increased to 87% compared with 85% in 2016/17 and food standards interventions, which covers areas such as authenticity and food fraud, increased to 42% compared with 40%
• the percentage of initial interventions carried out at food establishments not yet rated, increased to 61% from 60% for food standards but decreased to 88.5% compared with 90%  in 2016/17  for food hygiene
• a continuing fall in occupied staffing levels in professional posts which reduced by 1% in 2017/18 compared with the previous year
• a continuing reduction in sampling activity, with 45,210 official food samples reported in 2017/18, a decrease of 10%

Nina Purcell, Director of Regulatory Delivery at the FSA, said:

It’s encouraging that local authorities have made improvements in the percentage of interventions achieved and are continuing to target their activities at food businesses wher food safety risks are the highest or wher food fraud is more likely.

However, the 10% reduction in sampling by local authorities remains an issue and while the percentage of interventions are increasing there remains a shortfall of 13% for food hygiene. The low percentage of planned interventions achieved for food standards is also a continuing concern.

 
We are identifying and monitoring local authorities which are having difficulties with planning and delivery of the food law enforcement services through a new balanced scorecard approach. This is a digitally enabled tool which uses additional internal and external data, including FHRS data, to help provide a more rounded and more up-to date-picture of performance. This will also enable us to more easily visualise performance data on a national basis.