The purpose of service monitoring is
- to ensure the delivery of the planned service
- to identify shortfalls in delivery
- to enable corrective action to be designed and taken
There are three strands to our service monitoring arrangements:
- internal monitoring by service managers
- inter-authority audits by other North Yokshire Councils
- audits by external agencies such as the Food Standards Agency
Internal Monitoring
Progress towards achieving the targets within the annual service plan is monitored monthly. This monitoring includes what we've done and how well we've done it.
Audits by the Food Standards Agency
Audits of local authorities’ food law enforcement services are part of the Food Standards Agency’s arrangements to improve consumer protection and confidence in relation to food. These arrangements recognise that the enforcement of UK food law relating to food safety, hygiene, composition, labelling, imported food and feeding stuffs is largely the responsibility of local authorities.
In October 2004 an intensive audit of the food service took place, and the final report has been published in January 2005. This report records the results of an audit of the internal monitoring arrangements undertaken by Craven District Council and their involvement in Inter-Authority Audits and 3rd party/peer review schemes. This report, along with audits of other authorities, has been made available on the Agency’s website.
Record checks were carried out during the audit on a random sample of inspections of general and licensed/Approved premises, food complaints, food sampling, formal enforcement, food hazard warnings and infectious disease activity. The records for each of these aspects of food law enforcement activity clearly demonstrated that the Authority was consistently providing a high standard of service.
These records, along with those relating to internal monitoring, demonstrated that the overall effectiveness of food law enforcement and the consistent approach being taken between officers was underpinned by the internal monitoring arrangements in place.