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Food Law

UK Control, Enforcement and Inspection

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Review of Official Control

In January 2011, the Board of the Food Standards Agency agreed to a review of the way official food safety controls are delivered in the UK.

For detailed backgroud information on this topic, copies of the relevant FSA Board Paper and Annexes are provided on this site. See:

National Control Plan

REGULATION (EC) No 882/2004 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 29 April 2004 on official controls performed to ensure the verification of compliance with feed and food law, animal health and animal welfare rules

Article 41 - Multi-annual national control plans

In order to ensure the effective implementation of Article 17(2) of Regulation (EC) No 178/2002, of animal health and animal welfare rules and of Article 45 of this Regulation, each Member State shall prepare a single integrated multi-annual national control plan.

Under Article 41 of Regulation 882/2004, the UK was required to publish a “Multi-annual national control plan”. The first plan had to be implemented no later than 1 January 2007 (see Article 42). The first “Single integrated national control plan for the United Kingdom January 2007 to March 2011” was published on 14 December 2006.

The most recent version was published in February 2010. See:

Other Links

Control of Foodstuffs Data

Inspection data is prepared for submission to the EU Commission. This was initially required under the Directive on the Official Control of Foodstuffs. The requirement has been continued under Regulation 882/2004 on Official Controls. The Food Standards Agency main page for the data can be found at: https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20090414094503/http://www.food.gov.uk/enforcement/ocddata/

Before the creation of the Food Standards Agency, access to the data was limited and data is provided on this site of a limited analysis. See:

Data for 1998 was originally published by the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food (MAFF) and is available on an FSA Archive page. See:

Following the creation of the FSA, data has been published by the Agency. See

Also available on these pages is a news report relating to Audit Commission statistics. See UK News - 10 January 2001

Enforcement Codes of Practice

Section 40 of the Food Safety Act 1990 provides for the Minister to issue Codes of Enforcement Practice relating to the operation of the Act. Enforcment officers have to be aware of the content of the Codes since failure to compy with them could result in a prosecution failing. More recently, Regulation 24 of the Food Hygiene (England) Regulations 2006 and Regulation 6 of the Official Feed and Food Controls (England) Regulations 2006 also provide for official Codes of Practice

Note: The following information relates to the development of the documents for England - similar developments have taken place for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland although details are not given on this page.

FSA News Item, 10 March 2006

Food Law Code of Practice

The Agency has issued the Food Law Code of Practice and associated Practice Guidance for England.

The code sets out instructions and criteria to which the local and port health authorities (food authorities) should have regard to when engaged in the enforcement of food law. Food authorities must follow and implement the provisions of the code that apply to them.

Revisions were necessary to take account of EU food hygiene regulations and the national implementing regulations relating to England, all of which are applicable from 1 January 2006.

The Code of Practice and Practical Guidance are available on this site:

Chronology:

There were originally 20 Codes issued under the Food Safety Act (see below). Following a comprehensive review, a draft revised Code of Practice and Practical Guidance were circulated for comment in March 2003 (see UK News: 3 March 2003):

Following the consultation, these were then issued in October 2004 (see UK News: 25 October 2004):

Further changes were required following the adoption of the EU controls on official control and food hygiene. Proposals were issued in May 2005 (see UK News: 16 May 2005)

Further drafts were issued in November 2005 to take into account additional changes to the controls adopted by the EU (see UK News: 9 November 2005)

The Codes were then issued in March 2006 - see links above.

The Original Codes

Three Codes had been revised in October 2000 by the Food Standards Agency. Copies of these are provided on this site (see links below). Three other Codes were also issued previously (January 2000) as draft revised versions by the Department of Health. These are also provided on this site (in pdf format). These proposed versions indicated the suggested new text as well as the original text. The following is a complete list of the original Codes and their date of publication:

  1. "Responsibility for Enforcement of the Food Safety Act 1990", 1991
  2. "Legal Matters", 1991
  3. "Inspection Procedures - General", 1991
  4. "Inspection, Detention and Seizure of Suspect Food", 1991
  5. "The Use of Improvement Notices", 1991 (Revised 1994) Proposed Revision (January 2000)
  6. "Prohibition Procedures", 1991 Proposed Revision (January 2000)
  7. "Sampling for Analysis or Examination", Revised, October 2000
  8. "Food Standards Inspections", 1991 (Revised 1996) Proposed Revision (January 2000)
  9. "Food Hygiene Inspections", 2nd Revision, October 2000
  10. "Enforcement of the Temperature Control Requirements of Food Hygiene Regulations", 1991 (Revised 1994)
  11. "Enforcement of the Food Premises (Registration) Regulations", 1991
  12. "Quick Frozen Foodstuffs - Division of Enforcement Responsibilities", 1991 (Revised 1994)
  13. "Enforcement of the Food Safety Act 1990 in Relation to Crown Premises", 1992
  14. "Enforcement of the Food Safety (Live Bivalve Molluscs and other Shellfish) Regulations 1992", 1994
  15. "Enforcement of the Food Safety (Fishery Products) Regulations 1992", 1994
  16. "Enforcement of the Food Safety Act 1990 in Relation to the Food Hazard Warning System", 1993
  17. "Enforcement of the Meat Products (Hygiene) Regulations 1994", 1994
  18. "Enforcement of the Dairy Products (Hygiene) Regulations 1995", 1995
  19. "Qualifications and Experience of Authorised Officers", Revised October 2000
  20. "Exchange of Information between Member States of the EU on Routine Food Control Matters", 1996

The following are a selection of links to relevant information on enforcement and inspection.

Court Cases

When this site was first created, some example court cases were included. Although the page is still available, the data has not however been updated. Please use with caution:

This page was first provided by David Jukes on 3 January 2001.