Local Authority Capacity and Capability: Executive Summary

The FSA has a key role as the central competent authority in overseeing official food and feed controls undertaken by local authorities. This supports the delivery of the FSA’s mission, food you can trust, and helps ensure food is safe and what it says it is. The FSA seeks to work in partnership with local authorities to help them to deliver official food and feed controls. Local Authority (LA) Environmental Health (EH), Port Health and Trading Standards (TS) teams deliver official food and feed controls using a range of interventions as set out in the Food Law Code of Practice (FLCoP) and Feed Law Code of Practice (FeLCoP). They are instrumental to the delivery of the FSA mission, across England, Wales and Northern Ireland to ensure consumer confidence and protect public health. Evidence from professional bodies, LAs and wider sources suggests that LAs are experiencing significant issues around the recruitment and retention of suitably/ appropriately qualified and experienced officers.(footnote 1) The FSA commissioned Ipsos UK to carry out this initial phase of discovery research to understand more about the barriers and facilitators encountered by LAs in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.