Agenda and minutes

There were no declarations of interest.

(a)  To agree the minutes of the Cabinet Member (Policing and Equalities) meeting held on 29 September 2022

(b)  Matters arising

The minutes of the meeting held on 29 September 2022 were agreed and signed as a true record. There were no matters arising.

Report of the Director of Streetscene and Regulatory Service

The Cabinet Member considered a report of the Director of Streetscene and Regulatory Services which sought approval to the introduction of a charge for discretionary food and safety advice to local businesses.

The Food and Safety Team is responsible for overseeing a wide range of legislation and are committed to working with local businesses to ensure they have the correct advice necessary to run businesses to ensure they have the correct advice necessary to run businesses safely and to ensure that food produced, prepared or sold in the city is safe to eat and without risks to health and that places of work are safe for employees, for members of the public who visit such premises, and for contractors who undertake work at the premises.

Providing advice to local businesses is not a statutory function of the team. Section 93 (1) (a) of the Local Government Act 2003 and the Food Law Code of Practice (England) permits Local Authorities to charge for the provision of discretionary services, such as the provision of business advice.

Currently, the Food and Safety Team offers advice free of charge to any local businesses that requests it. The Team has a wealth of resources on the Council’s website so businesses can help themselves to food safety and health and safety advice and support, however, many businesses request a more detailed and bespoke advice service from a trusted professional that they already have a rapport with.

The time spent with a business providing this more detailed advice can take a considerable amount of time and has a direct impact on the resource available to provide statutory services. Sometimes, if requested, officers would visit a food premises to give advice e.g. to help advise on the completion of documentation, give advice on surface finishes in a food business or give advice on the set up of a new food business. Officers do not provide on-site health and safety advice as the nature of that is significantly different in that to give specialist health and safety advice, the advisor would need to have full and comprehensive understanding of how a business operates. The team simply do not have the resource at the current time to deliver this type of service.

The team received approximately 200 requests for advice each year and on average, each one of them takes an officer about one hour to deal with in total. On occasions, an on-site advice visit would be made which would take longer to complete and also incurs the associated costs of return travel and parking. As this work is discretionary, it was proposed that this type of advice is charged for. It was anticipated that even if only half the number of current requests for advice is received in future, a new income stream of approximately £8,000 could be achieved.

The provision of completely free business advice is no longer considered to be appropriate given the high number of requests for advice made by local businesses each year. The  ...  view the full minutes text for item 22.

There are no outstanding issues

There were no outstanding issues.

To consider any other items of business which the Cabinet Member decides to take as a matter of urgency because of the special circumstances involved.

There were no other items of public business.