FSA publishes local authority food law enforcement data

29 Jun 2017 06:15 PM

The FSA has published interim food law enforcement data by local authorities across the UK for the year 2016/17. The information has been provided by local authorities and compiled by the FSA, and gives a detailed breakdown of food law enforcement activity.

In previous years we waited until the end of the reporting year to publish data. This year for the first time we are publishing interim data, to improve transparency and to provide more timely data ahead of the full 2016/17 statistics report.

This publication includes data received up to the start of June 2017, for individual local authority food hygiene and food standards statistics. The data set will be updated in July with information subsequently received up to the end of June. This data is very important in providing assurance on how the system of food controls is working and we are keen to complete the analysis and reporting on this data earlier than in previous years.

Background

The FSA monitors local authority performance through Local Authority Enforcement Monitoring System (LAEMS) returns and reports on an annual basis.

The Framework Agreement on the Delivery of Official Feed and Food Controls by local authorities is the mechanism by which the FSA sets out the standards for local authority food law services, which includes the FSA’s monitoring and audit processes.

LAEMS is a web-based system to which local authorities are able to upload data generated from the local system(s) on which they record data on food law enforcement activities.

Once uploaded to LAEMS, the local authority data is aggregated to the pre-defined categories required by the FSA e.g. interventions, sampling and enforcement.

More information on the Framework Agreement, LAEMS web-base system and Individual local authority data which is published online can be found in the section below.