National Enforcement Priorities for animal feed and food hygiene
England and Wales
The FSA’s National Enforcement Priorities (NEPs) for animal feed and for food hygiene at the level of primary production are developed annually in consultation with local authority (LA) representatives on the National Agriculture Panel (NAP) and National Animal Feed at Ports Panel (NAFPP).
Incorporating the NEPs into a programme of official controls helps:
- Achieve a consistent and risk-based enforcement approach through improvements to LA systems and processes;
- Improve adherence to the Feed Law Code of Practice, Feed Law Practice Guidance and Framework Agreement on official feed and food controls*;
- Establish and improve levels of compliance by Feed Business Operators (FeBOs) with feed law;
With a view to:
- A consistent, targeted and proportionate level of enforcement taking place across the UK;
- Safeguarding animal and public health and contributing to the FSA Strategic Outcome that Food is Safe;
- Maintaining a level playing field for honest and diligent FeBOs, which is in the interests of the industry as a whole;
- Reducing unnecessary burdens on business by focusing the activity of LAs on agreed priorities.
Legislation and guidance to support local authorities embed the priorities within their annual plan of official feed and food controls can be found within the NEPs document, available to download here.
*For details of the Feed Law Codes of Practices and associated documentation for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, please see the section on “Controls and Compliance Legislation”.
The current plan for England and Wales runs from 2019 -2020 and can be downloaded from the following link:-
Scotland
Food Standards Scotland (FSS) has published the National Feed Priorities for Scotland 2017-2018.
Northern Ireland
The National Enforcement Priorities was circulated to Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) See also the attached letter.
The amendments to the document simply reflect the position in Northern Ireland (NI) along with the GB position. For example the document refers to Enforcement Authorities rather than Local Authorities (LAs) as LAs do not undertake enforcement activity in NI. All enforcement activity in NI is carried out by DAERA. Also there are references to the Feed Law Enforcement Guidance Document (Northern Ireland) in addition to the Feed Law Code of Practice and Feed Law Practice Guidance.
For all intents and purposes the priorities mirror those in the document circulated in England.
For further information for Northern Ireland please contact:- [email protected]