Can ‘scores on the doors’ survive government cuts?

10th August 2010, 11:02am

In many areas of Britain, restaurants and foodservice outlets are having their environmental health inspections scored and are awarded marks on a variety of schemes. In Scotland, running their own scheme in 10 authorities, there are two levels, Pass or Improvement Required. Now there is a national scheme about to be introduced that has six levels, no stars and display will be voluntary. The unanswered question is how likely it is that these schemes will survive the current government cutbacks? David Hurst considers the proposals.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) says there are more than 200 local authorities operating or about to launch Scores on the Doors schemes and publishing information on web-based systems.

The types of businesses scored, the scoring system used (number of tiers and associated symbols and descriptors e.g. three- and five-star approaches, smiley faces, pass/fail, traffic lights systems etc.) and policy as regards re-inspections and re-visits for the purposes of re-scoring, can all vary.

Additionally, some provide certificates and stickers for voluntary display by businesses at their premises, but many are web-based only. A significant majority of existing schemes are based on a six-tier scoring system though these are not all the same.

Over the last 50 years, since the Food Hygiene Regulations 1955, foodservice professionals and customers have got used to the routine of inspections by environmental health officials from the local council.

Local papers have reports of outlets being shut down for unhygienic conditions and just occasionally there are serious outbreaks of illness traced back to one unit's bad practice or sheer carelessness.

Or as some professionals will say, off the record, sometimes sheer bad luck.

Chefs are trained in hygiene and there are a range of consultancies offering services to help managers understand and avoid the problems so there should be no excuse for failing an inspection. But it still happens.

Talk to customers and most are aware of and reassured by the inspections. If an outlet is open it is expected to be clean but cleanliness is but one of the judgements made before walking through the door of unfamiliar premises.

Residents in a town will have their own favourite establishments that fit their expectations.

Visitors will often ask opinions, perhaps of the innumerable websites but often preferring real people.

Some 2,000 schemes started to be introduced in the USA and Canada and some European countries such as Denmark as Catriona Stewart, head of the Scores on the Doors team at the FSA, explains.

"The evidence from them is that there are improvements in the levels of hygiene and that's a really important thing. That's the basis of why we want to have a scheme.

"In 2006/7 some UK local authorities started to introduce schemes and the agency had some pilots as well."

A steering group was invited in 2008 to advise the FSA and is chaired by Steven Esom currently at Langholm Capital but with a career in Sainsbury's, Waitrose, Marks & Spencer and Ocado.

The steering group includes consumer and local authority representatives together with three industry representatives, John Dyson of the British Hospitality Association, Rita King, British Beer & Pub Association and Andrew Opie, British Retail Consortium.

The scheme the FSA is developing is nearly complete and is planned to be rolled out in the autumn, probably October or November.

For those who have no scheme already there will be little difference in the initial stages. After that normal annual inspection the premises will be given a score of between 0 and 5 or will be closed down if there is an imminent threat to public health.

The descriptors or definition for each tier of the rating are still work in progress. The final descriptors will reflect the findings of recent consumer research, but there may be some refinements to take account of comments made by the steering group.

Stewart adds: "If a business has been closed because it is an imminent risk to public health, it is not trading so it is not given a score.

"So for those businesses still open the local authority will be following up on the improvements that have to be made and ensure that the risks to public health are eliminated."

The business will then be invited to display the score it has been awarded on the door of the premises.

The FSA is developing a branding and templates for display material that local authorities can give to businesses free of charge.

"At this stage it will be voluntary for the business to display their rating," explains Stewart. "We are encouraging as many businesses as possible to want to display and to get the top rating so they are proud to display.

"We are working on the principle, at least for now, that as consumers become more familiar with the scheme they will look for the rating display and draw their own conclusions if there is no display but to leave the door open for mandatory display in the future."

If the business wants to improve its score after remedial work it can ask for a revisit and the local authority, subject to some conditions, can give another score.

Stewart clarifies: "What we don't want to do is to compromise the whole public protection regime and the local authority's planned inspection programme by concentrating on those businesses who have 3 and 4 and want to go to 5.

"What we want is for local authorities to be targeting those businesses who are scoring 0, 1 or 2. They take a risk-based approach so we have to be careful we don't compromise that."

Each premises will get one score so a large resort hotel with various foodservice units would get a single score. However, if there was (say) a branded Costa Coffee unit within the resort that would get a separate score.

The intention is that all outlets providing food to the public will be scored from supermarkets to burger vans including care homes, schools, hospitals, B&Bs and home caterers.

There will be some exceptions, e.g. childminders, who are not seen as food retailers.

A significant part of the scheme will be the ability of customers and anyone else to call up the individual unit scores on a national website.

The FSA is providing the website linked to each local authority and those local authorities will file the scores as the inspections are carried out.

Stewart explains: "The development of the database and public facing website is well underway and we are confident it is going to be ready by mid-September."

John Dyson, BHA representative on the steering group says: "The industry is unhappy about the scheme as they believe it is too complicated and the introduction is likely to be piecemeal and delayed because of government spending restrictions.

"We wanted a two-tier system like Scotland with just a pass or fail as that is what customers and the industry are used to. The FSA's own research showed that consumers found six tiers too confusing and the chances of any outlet displaying a score of 0, 1 or 2 is so remote as to be unthinkable.

"We also find it difficult to believe that many customers will look up a separate website before they walk through the door of an unfamiliar restaurant."

The scheme is voluntary for local authorities as the FSA has no power to compel. Stewart explains: "If we wanted to impose a scheme we would need legislation to do that. We are working very closely with local authorities to encourage as many as possible to participate in the national scheme rather than their own scheme and we want to try and encourage them to participate as early on as possible.

"We want to work with those who want to adopt the scheme early. Already in Wales all 22 local authorities have said they want to adopt the national scheme.

"At the moment we have one in Northern Ireland and we are working with the rest of them as time goes on.

"For England we have 65 who have indicated they would like to be early adopters of the scheme. We are confident that we will get a good proportion of local authorities adopting it."

The FSA also hopes that eventually all of those local authorities running their own schemes will migrate across. There remains the question of whether the scheme will survive the government's spending cuts.

It has been announced that the statement on cuts will be on 20th October but it sounds as though the majority of the FSA's spend will be completed before that date.

The IT system is due by mid-September and artwork and templates should be ready around the same time for the planned launch in October/November.

Local authorities will be doing the inspections and reports anyway so the extra costs for them are assumed to be relatively small.

The main problem will be the publicity as government advertising has been curtailed already.

"The agency is absolutely committed to moving forward with the national scheme," says Stewart.

"If we have to be using alternative means of promoting it we will certainly be doing that.

"It'll be a mixture of things as different authorities join at different times so it will be local to begin with then we will be looking at promoting more widely as more and more local authorities join. We remain committed to rolling out the scheme as soon as possible."

Words David Hurst

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