Responding to a National Audit Office report on ensuring food
safety and standards, Cllr Simon Blackburn, Chair of the Local
Government Association’s Safer and Stronger Communities Board,
said:
“Although it is ultimately the responsibility of food
manufacturers, suppliers and retailers to ensure the products
they produce or sell comply fully with food safety law, and are
what they say they are, councils work extremely hard to maintain
and improve food hygiene and standards.
“Councils have lost 60p out of every £1 they had from government
to spend on services since 2010. These significant funding cuts
are affecting all council services – which include trading
standards budgets and staffing being cut by around half since
2010 – and undoubtedly make it extremely difficult for some
councils to maintain previous levels of food work, given the
competing demands of areas such as social care, children’s
services and homelessness.
“The NAO is right that there is a pressing need for government to
come up with a sustainable funding model for food regulation,
and for other vital areas of regulation. This
either needs to be through businesses meeting the costs of
regulation, or through councils being properly funded. Government
must use the forthcoming Spending Review to plug the £8 billion
funding gap councils will face by 2025.
“Councils will always seek to mitigate the challenges created by
falling budgets. Local officers know their local areas best and
direct reduced resources at the riskiest businesses and products,
while national co-ordination through the Food Standards
Agency and intelligence sharing can also help to ensure that
limited resources are targeted most effectively.”
NOTES TO EDITORS
- Councils in England face an overall funding gap of £8 billion
by 2025. The LGA’s #CouncilsCan campaign aims to influence the
forthcoming Spending Review and highlight the growing risk to
vital local services if the Government does not take action to
secure the financial sustainability of councils. Visit our
campaign page for more information - https://www.local.gov.uk/spending-review-2019
