Food safety needs a credible inspection regime

Food safety matters. We need to cut through the jargon in corporate strategies and stand up for properly resourced and independent inspection of the food we eat.


Food Standards Scotland (FSS) has published its corporate strategy for the period up to April 2019. The document claims that "to put the consumer at the heart of what we do, we need to understand what matters to consumers in relation to food. Consumers have told us that trust is essential for FSS, so we need to earn and keep that trust."

They helpfully, if alarmingly, remind us that food safety is a significant health issue in Scotland. They estimate that there are approximately 43,000 cases of foodborne infectious intestinal disease (IID) annually, leading to 5,800 GP visits and 500 hospital admissions. Just one example is Campylobacter, with between 55‐75% of all reported cases of Campylobacter infection in Scotland associated with a chicken source. A significant proportion of fresh chicken on retail sale in the UK is contaminated with the pathogen.

The FSS is directly responsible for official meat controls and provides guidance to local authorities who are supposed to deliver other inspections. The strategy seeks to reassure us that "protecting public health remains our key objective."

So far so good. However, later in the paper we are told that, "We will review these programmes so that they are proportionate and do not place undue burdens either on the industries we regulate or on taxpayers."

Based on past experience this sounds like code for further deregulation of meat inspection. Until recently the FSS was part of the U.K. Food Standards Agency. They have just published a document: “Regulating Our future”, in which they announce an intention to introduce a free ride for businesses who’ve passed an assessment visit sometime in the last few years or allow approved companies to provide assurance of food hygiene standards alongside local authorities. In short, the FSA are going to reduce meat and other food inspection and hand over responsibility to industry. 


In fact, FSS are already going down this road with white meat by replacing independent FSS poultry meat inspectors with plant employed poultry inspection assistants. When inspection probably costs little more than a penny a bird, this is short-sighted in the extreme.

The FSA have used 'proportionate' and 'undue burdens' in the past as justification for deregulation and we must be suspicious that the FSS review is heading in the same direction. The meat industry is a powerful lobby and their need to maximise profit has often triumphed over consumer protection.

We should be equally concerned over the capacity of local authorities to meet their obligations in relation to food safety. Environmental health departments have been the subject of significant cuts in recent years and many are struggling to undertake regular inspections of food premises. The review could also impact on their roles.

As always with corporate strategies you need to look beyond the fine words and look at the actions. The review of regulatory programmes is one to watch carefully.

Staff who keep our food safer deserve a pay rise

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) hasn't had the best of press recently, now they have forced their staff out on strike and refused to resolve the dispute at ACAS.

There has been growing concern over the way the FSA handles food safety across the UK. It's part of the reason why Scotland is in the process of establishing a separate body, although many of the problems are likely to remain here as well.

A recent survey for the Food Standards Agency showed 59% of raw chicken bought at supermarkets contained the potentially deadly bacteria Campylobacter. As an article in the Scotsman put it, "After a decade of trying to get the poultry industry to clean up its act, the Food Standards Agency had promised to name and shame the worst offenders in the first quarter of its year-long survey. However, pressure from the industry has led the FSA to back down".

Few lessons also appear to have been learned from the horsemeat scandal. The Guardian discovered that the publication of the inquiry into the scandal has been blocked amid government concerns that the public would be frightened by the idea that criminals were still able to interfere with their food.

UNISON members in the FSA will be taking strike action on 26th and 27th August. For the second year in a row, the FSA imposed a pay rise of 0.75% on our members, while most other public sector workers have been offered a 1% increase. Even as late as last week, UNISON asked them to reconsider and go to ACAS for arbitration, but they refused.

The primary job of meat ispectors is to ensure the meat we eat is slaughtered safely and that contaminated meat doesn't enter the food chain. Since April 2012 meat inspectors and vets have prevented over a million instances of diseased animal carcasses from entering the food chain in Scotland. This included:

659,000 instances of the Liver Fluke parasite

427,000 instances of pneumonia in red meat carcasses

100,000 instances of adult tape worm

100,000 tumours in chickens

1100 instances of parasitic lung worm in cattle, from entering the food chain.

We all know from hard experience in many sectors that light touch regulation doesn't work. It's a message that hasn't yet been understood by the UK and Scottish government's. Independent chicken inspections have already been diluted and the Scottish Government has recently done the same for pigs. Meat inspectors, official veterinarians and support staff cost each person in the country just 38 pence per year. A small price to pay for safer food.

To add insult to injury they are being offered pay rises below even the miserly government pay policy. Staff in slaughterhouses work in some of the most dirty, difficult and stressful conditions, surrounded by blood and faeces, to keep the public safe from contaminated meat. They deserve a fair pay rise.

 

 

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Chicken contamination puts profits before safety

A recent survey for the Food Standards Agency showed 59% of raw chicken bought at supermarkets contained the potentially deadly bacteria Campylobacter, with 16% being heavily contaminated. This demonstrates, yet again, that the light touch regulation favoured by the UK and Scottish government's is not protecting the consumer.

Campylobacter is the most common form of food poisoning in the UK, affecting more than a quarter of a million people every year. It causes stomach upsets, vomiting and diarrhoea and is responsible for more than 100 deaths a year, costing the economy £900m.

Stephen Jardine highlights the regulatory failure in his Scotsman article, "After a decade of trying to get the poultry industry to clean up its act, the Food Standards Agency had promised to name and shame the worst offenders in the first quarter of its year-long survey. However, pressure from the industry has led the FSA to back down". He concludes "Action will only come when culprits are named and shamed, forcing them to act tough with suppliers to protect their market share. Then, and only then, will things really start to change."

Even that bastion of the free market, The Daily Mail, was outraged, "The survey results are a damning indictment of supermarkets, farmers and processors who are putting customers at risk every day of the week"

Food safety experts have highlighted the close links between the industry and regulators. Erik Millstone, professor of science policy at the University of Sussex said, "The FSA has failed to keep its promise to the British public. This means that consumers can no longer trust the FSA to put the interest of consumers ahead of those of the food industry."

Tim Lang, professor of food policy at City University, said the FSA had been ‘captured’ by industry interests. "This is a sad day for British food policy. A quarter of a century after the British learned of the extent of contamination of poultry, we are back again with unacceptable levels of food-borne pathogens. Then, it was salmonella. Now, it’s campylobacter."

In June this year, I gave evidence to the Scottish Parliament's Health Committee on the Food (Scotland) Bill that will create Food Standards Scotland. I highlighted the work of Scottish meat inspectors in preventing over a million instances of diseased animal carcasses from entering the food chain. The FoI data we released included 100,000 chicken tumours. I said, "This shows what a vital job meat inspectors do. We are calling on the Scottish Government to ensure that Food Standards Scotland is focussed on safety of consumers not food industry profits. Meat inspectors and vets must be able to carry out thorough independent inspections, free from food industry influence."

Meat inspectors and environmental health staff have been warning of the implications of deregulation and cuts in food safety for years. To add to the demoralisation caused by unheeded warnings, meat inspectors are now suffering real term cuts to their pay. They are not even getting the miserly government pay policy. Meat inspectors, official veterinarians and support staff employed by the Food Standards Agency have therefore voted for industrial action. That action will have a serious impact on food output.

The food industry hasn't done enough to clean up its act and deregulation has simply encouraged them to put profits before consumer safety. The FSA has been complicit in this process, being far too close to the industry. The Scottish Government has an opportunity through the establishment of Food Standards Scotland to take a new approach. Early signs are not good with the Scottish Parliament passing regulations that allow visual only inspection of pigs.

Hopefully, this latest survey will cause ministers to think again and put the consumer first.

 

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Creating a real good food nation

Increasing access for everyone to good quality food to improve Scotland’s diet and food culture is the right objective. Tackling food poverty and strengthening food safety must be as big a priority as the commercial benefits to the food and drink industry.

The Scottish Government's new discussion document 'Becoming a Good Food Nation' includes:

•Creating a Scottish Food Commission to champion the importance of food to Scotland’s health, environment, economy and quality of life

•Promoting good food choices to consumers, enlisting the support of retailers, food producers and public bodies

•Having Scotland’s public sector lead by example with the NHS, local authorities and Scottish Government signing up to offer fresh, seasonal, local and sustainable produce

•Developing a specific children’s food policy in recognition of the impact of food on the health of young people and their ability to influence society’s behaviour for generations to come

•Working with communities to encourage the production and sale of more locally grown food

•Realising the economic benefits of a better domestic food culture for Scotland’s food and drink sector.

Scotland has one of the poorest diet-related health records in the world with obesity alone set to cost between £3bn and £5bn by 2030. Consumption of fruit and vegetables among the poorest 20% of Scots has fallen by a fifth since the recession and the subsequent welfare cuts kicked in. One third of cancers are diet related. So Food Nation is rightly about more than a new marketing strategy. In this context, it is at questionable if the initiative should come under the farming rather than the public health minister.

The discussion document broadly reflects the ideas promoted in UNISON Scotland's 'Food for Good' charter. We first launched this in 2008 and updated it last year, so government recognition is welcome.

We particularly agree that the public sector must lead by example, not only through public service catering, but also through procurement. However, financial pressures on school and hospital kitchens are making it very difficult to maintain standards. UNISON surveyed members working in catering and found that 54% say there have been major or severe cuts in the last 3-4 years. FoI requests showed that less than half of food is bought locally and off site cook chill catering is on the increase to cut costs.

The discussion document emphasises how well Scottish food and drink brands are doing worldwide, although whisky remains the dominant export. What the document doesn't recognise is the importance of strong regulation and food safety. It takes only one food scandal to wreck a brand and shortcuts here make no sense. For example, the Scottish Government has only recently pushed new regulations through parliament that will allow meat producers to mince thousands of pig tumours and abscesses into our pies and sausages. It's a bad food nation that puts production speed and profit before safety and quality.

So, let's welcome this initiative, while recognising that we have a lot more to do before we can claim to actually be a good food nation.

 

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Food safety before profit

Protecting the consumer and quality Scottish food brands needs proper regulation and a new Food body that puts food safety before company profit.

I was giving evidence this morning to the Scottish Parliament Health Committee on the Food (Scotland) Bill. This Bill creates Food Standards Scotland to take over the work of the UK-wide Food Standards Agency in Scotland, and establishes new food law provisions.

UNISON welcomes the devolution of this work from a UK body that has a mixed record in protecting consumers. It has all too often fallen into the deregulation lobby and tamely surrendered to the pressures from some meat producers for faster production at the expense of food safety. We hope that a Scottish body will recognise that protecting the brand requires independent inspection, so that the consumer can have confidence in the product. It was encouraging to hear Tesco making similar points this morning.

A key test will be to ensure that meat inspection is not handed over to the companies as many of the producers would wish. A company meat inspector is inevitably placed in an impossible conflict of interests position.

There is a good example of deregulation currently in front of MSPs with an EU proposal to introduce visual only inspection of pig carcasses. This means the 37,000 abscesses and tumours spotted by meat inspectors are likely to be missed in future and minced into our sausages and pies. The health risks may be low, but this is a quality issue. Something the FSA thinks is nothing to do with them. I trust MSPs grasped what the FSA said on that point this morning and ensure that quality is a concern.

There is a welcome strengthening of the regulatory powers in areas such as administrative fines and a duty to report. However, all the legislation and regulation in the world is useless if it is not enforced - a common theme in evidence this morning. The numbers of local authority Environmental Health Officers and staff dealing with food have been cut by 20% and food sampling is down by a third. Putting an out of date inspection report on a restaurant door is pointless. The preventative and education work that the industry welcomes is also being reduced because of staffing cuts.

The legislation is very light on staffing issues, you would think inspection was carried out by robots! Staff transfers are relegated to the Financial Memorandum when the Cabinet Office rules say they should be in the legislation. There are also no provisions for Staff Governance, something the new body would benefit from.

There may well be a reduced demand for pies and and sausages in the MSP canteen today and our latest info graphic makes the point visually. Let's hope our MSPs recognise that food safety and quality is everyone's business.

 

 

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Why regulation matters

Good regulation rarely gets a mention in the 'red tape' headlines, but it's an essential safeguard for us all. Regulations don’t just protect the public from unscrupulous and dangerous practices they protect other businesses as well. Companies who don’t follow the rules can offer a cheaper and/or faster service. This makes it difficult for those who do the right thing to compete. Fly tippers can charge a lot less than those who pay to have their waste disposed of or recycled. This drives down profit margins and increases costs for taxpayers who have to pay to have streets cleaned.

Today, we held a meeting of our members who deliver a wide range of regulatory functions. Planners, environmental health, trading standards and meat inspectors ensure that Scotland is a better, safer place to live and work.

Both the UK and Scottish Governments have bought, to varying degrees, the 'red tape' myth. As the OECD has reported, the UK actually has one of the lowest administrative burdens in the developed world. Even business surveys show low levels of concern and very few actual examples of unnecessary regulation. None the less, in Scotland we now have the Regulatory Reform Act, a largely unnecessary and cosmetic piece of legislation, and today we were considering the consultation on a Scottish regulators code of practice.

The code is a high level strategic document which is the right approach as front line staff cannot be expected to juggle with conflicting requirements. However, there is still a concern that the concept of 'regulators as enablers' conflicts with the primary role of ensuring compliance. In some areas, like food safety, compliance should be absolute, whereas in others an enabling approach is possible. More effort is focussed on high risk areas but we should not abandon others. I did like the SEPA enforcement model in the consultation – ‘chancers’ indeed!

The Act introduced the concept of regulators contributing to ‘sustainable economic growth’. While this is an admirable, if vague, ideal, the actions of regulators have a minimal impact on economic growth. Creating an industry around this issue is likely to add to the recording and other burdens staff are already struggling with.

The biggest concern is cuts in staff and resources. As our FoI and survey evidence shows, many areas of regulatory activity are being abandoned as well as training and other forms of support to businesses. In areas like meat inspection, the industry is successfully lobbying for light touch regulation. I for one don’t want to eat food with abscesses, but that’s precisely what I am going to get when meat inspectors are limited to visual inspection of animals. This is something MSPs will need to address when the Food (Scotland) Bill is considered by the Health Committee.

Sensible regulation is something we all take for granted. We assume that someone is checking that the food we eat and the goods we buy are safe. Increasingly, that is simply not the case and as usual it will be a tragedy that causes governments to rethink the merits of light touch regulation.

Why we should worry about food safety

THIS summer our newspapers have been full of stories about healthy bread, sausages and the risk of sugary drinks, to name but a few. While healthy eating is important, we ought to take a closer look at what’s happening earlier in the food chain.

Plans from the EU, backed by the UK government, are set to weaken meat inspection, opening the door to diseased animals getting into the food chain. As one meat hygiene inspector put it, in a stomach-churning warning: “If you stop looking for it, you stop finding it and you start eating it.”

In this article in the Scotsman I take a look at these plans and the implications for Scotland's new food safety body. In the wake of the horse meat scandal we should be strengthening regulation not weakening it. The lessons from 'light touch' regulation need to be learned.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/food-safety-must-come-ahead-of-profit-1-3048451

Lessons from the horsemeat scandal

The horsemeat scandal should be an alarm call for government and the industry over the importance of food safety. The Scudamore Report on the incident makes recommendations for future action.

The Scottish Government has now published the report of the expert advisory group (EAG) on the horsemeat scandal. I would highlight a few key points from the report.

Firstly the EAG recognises the stretched resources of local authorities. This is something UNISON Scotland recently highlighted following a survey of members working on food safety. The report states:

"A number of Scottish Local Authorities believe that the impact that a situation similar to the recent horsemeat crisis has on the already stretched resources of Local Authorities needs careful consideration. A review of local resources including all aspects of food standards enforcement would possibly find many Local Authorities under major resource pressures. At a time when Local Authorities’ budgets are declining it will be critical to decide what is required and whether priorities need to change."

Secondly, while the horsemeat scandal was primarily a labelling issue, the EAG recognises the importance of strong inspection and sampling regimes. UNISON Scotland has previously warned that these regimes have been weakened in recent years, largely at the behest of the industry. The report states:

"In dealing with processes it was important that the inspection and sampling regimes by both Local Authorities and industry were appropriate and well-targeted to the areas of highest risk. Audit and inspection by the Local Authorities and the FSA operations service was important as was the development of accreditation and assurance schemes."

"FSA Scotland should ensure that unannounced visits to cutting plants and other food businesses take place with frequency based on risk and known compliance with the regulations."

Thirdly, the EAG highlights the importance of strong sanctions. Current sanctions are simply not up to the job. The report states:

"A robust regulatory regime with strong sanctions was essential particularly where there was clear evidence of large scale fraudulent activity. Meaningful fines or custodial penalties need to accompany serious food fraud otherwise it will continue to be seen as a relatively risk free enterprise."

Overall, this report is a welcome recognition of the task facing the new Scottish FSA. The light touch regulatory approach is inadequate for both food safety and the industry. The Scottish Government needs to take a much more robust approach and resource it.

Food safety comes first

I don't often quote the heir to the throne approvingly, but on food production Prince Charles has a point. Health Warning: don’t read this blog before you eat meat!

UNISON Scotland has made its submission to the Scottish Government consultation on a new food standards body for Scotland. Food safety is a devolved issue, even if you might not have realised that during the horsemeat scandal, but many of the functions have been administered by the UK Food Standards Agency. The Scottish Government now plans to create a Scottish quango to do this - something we support.

The establishment of such an agency is in principle unlikely to be controversial. What it does might be more of an issue. The consultation paper talks rather vaguely about other roles. It is unclear if this might include environmental health functions currently administered by local authorities, or public health roles carried out by NHS Scotland. Either way, any centralisation of functions currently delivered locally would be wrong in principle. The Scottish Government has form on centralisation, so this needs watching.

Another reason for concern over widening the role of the new body is the FSA approach to regulation. It is not unusual for government bodies to become 'captured' by their main client group. Our concern is that the UK FSA was much too close to the meat industry and promoted 'light touch' regulation, even during the horsemeat scandal.


We need to avoid this in Scotland, but it will be challenging. The Environment Minister's main concern during the horsemeat scandal was to protect the Scottish Meat brand. Now, Scottish Meat is undoubtedly very good, but it is also a premium product, out of the reach of low paid consumers. These consumers need regulatory protection for mass market products. I would also argue that Scottish Meat needs this. It takes many years to build a brand, but just one scandal to destroy it.

The Scottish Government should take the opportunity in establishing the new body to ensure its independence and end the dominance of the food industry in lobbying for lighter regulation. For example, the transfer in 2006 of responsibility for ensuring only clean livestock are slaughtered, from the state controlled Meat Hygiene Service to the slaughterhouse Food Business Operators. This and current proposed changes such as introducing visual inspections instead of cutting animals open to check for sickness or diseases are dangerous steps that Scotland can correct. Below are a couple of examples of what can be missed if you rely on visual inspections only.

Whatever the meat lobby might achieve in Europe or at UK level, we need to ensure that such conditions don’t enter the food chain in Scotland. This means independent, qualified and skilled officials making these decisions, not the people who work for the meat plants. They may or may not be under pressure to maximise profit and minimise waste for the meat plant owner. The important point is that consumer confidence requires independent inspection and that needs to be rebuilt after the horsemeat scandal.

Independent officials carry out ante & post mortems on every red meat animal we eat to ensure the consumer does not eat abscesses, tumours, pneumonia, parasitic cysts and a host of other culinary delights. Personally, I prefer it that way! So let’s make sure the new food safety body in Scotland does as well.

Public safety risk exposed

Before the current horsemeat scandal broke we were getting feedback from members in Environmental Health departments that staffing cuts were undermining their work in protecting the public. We therefore sought to ascertain the facts through Freedom of Information requests and two surveys of UNISON members.

Today, we publish the results and they confirm cuts to local council environmental health departments and to the Food Standards Agency (FSA) are putting public health at risk.

The total number of qualified Environmental Health Officers (EHOs) employed by 30 of Scotland’s 32 councils, has gone down by 13% between 2008/9 (519) and 20011/12 (450). There has been an even bigger drop in other staff carrying out an enforcement role in environmental health departments, 507 down to 423 in the same period or 17%. In addition the number of meat inspectors has more than halved in Scotland since 2003, down from 170 to 75, a shocking statistic in the light of the current horsemeat scandal.

When we asked the staff how they would describe the cuts, 56% of staff said that their team has seen “major” cuts, with a further 10% describing cuts as “severe”, and more than 95% expecting further cutbacks and job losses in the next couple of years.

As is often the case with this type of survey it is the additional comments that say as much as the raw statistics.

One member working on food safety in an environmental health department said: “We have not submitted any samples for food in ten months!” Another said, “There are far too few staff for the amount of food premises and other additional jobs required to be carried out by EHOs."

As we have been warning for some time our members can see departments depleted, with the loss of experienced staff, ‘lighter touch’ regulation, fewer proactive inspections, preventive and educational work. Other essential services, particularly health and safety are being cut back drastically.

While in the current climate the focus is not unreasonably on food safety, we should also not forget the health and safety function EHO’s undertake. As one member put it:

“I have major fears about the changes to health and safety inspections having inspected a lot of businesses in the last 7 years. About 75% of them did not have risk assessments or any awareness of the need to do them. Most knew nothing about accident reporting regulations.”

Health and safety should be about preventing accidents. For example, the legionnaire’s outbreak in Edinburgh again followed a cut in inspections.   However, EHO’s simply don’t have the time to do preventative work. What we are seeing in relation to horsemeat today will be replicated in other areas, unless we stop the cuts and the obsession with light touch regulation.

I will finish with one final quote that for me says it all:

“I have spent time with parents whose child has been desperately ill with Ecoli poisoning. It is awful and preventable. We can help prevent this and other tragic things happening. But this will become less and less often. A rise in public health related illness and injury will happen. But possibly more gradually than most think. Un-noticed maybe. But it will happen.”

Regulatory cuts and the meat scandal

Sunday newspapers doing what they do best today, giving us some in depth analysis and breaking new ground with the week's news stories.

The standout story comes from Rob Edwards in the Sunday Herald. Three key regulatory statistics form the basis for the story:

• The number of meat inspectors in Scotland has fallen by more than 50%, from 170 in 2003 to 75 today.
• The number of samples taken by Scottish local authorities to test for food safety has fallen from more than 16,000 in 2008-09 to 10,200 in 2011-12
• Over the last four years there has been a 21% drop in the number of specialist food safety officers employed by local authorities and an 11% fall in the number of environmental health officers.

Then an expert to give us an overiew in this case Professor Andrew Watterson, head of the occupational and environmental health research group at the University of Stirling He argued that the horsemeat fiasco was a "sentinel event" with widespread implications. "We need to protect public health better. Declines in meat inspector numbers and local authority food safety officers, along with reduced food sampling, must contribute to a weakening of public health standards and the possibility of criminal abuses in the food system." He also criticised Government ministers for trying to heap the blame on food processors when it was their responsibility to safeguard public health, saying: "We need to revive, not marginalise, environmental health and food safety and raise standards of protection for consumers."

And my own contribution. "Unison's Scottish organiser, Dave Watson, accused governments of forgetting the lessons learned from the BSE crisis in the 1990s about controlling the meat industry. He said: "Only strong, independent inspection can properly protect the public from industry malpractice. The current scandal follows cuts in meat inspection and environmental health services, proving that 'light touch' regulation has been a disaster for consumers."

On a UK basis, the Observer today gives us an update on the latest developments and an excellent piece by Will Hutton pointing to how the meat scandal shows all that is rotten about the free marketeers.

"As an effective regulator, it (FSA) was disliked by "wealth-generating" supermarkets and food companies. Its 1,700 inspectors were agents of the state terrifying honest-to-God entrepreneurs with unannounced spot checks and enforced "gold-plated" food labelling. Regulation should be "light touch".

This is a point we made last year and again at the outset of the scandal. The meat industry has been lobbying for self-regulation for years. Now it has come back to bite them they are falling over themselves to reassure us. As Hutton puts it:

"Paterson, beneath the ideological bluster, is as innocent about business as Bambi. He finds himself with no answer to the charge that his hollowed-out department, a gutted FSA with 800 fewer inspectors and eviscerated local government were and are incapable of ensuring public health."

I could not have put it better myself.

Meat Inspection

No apologies for returning to the issue of food safety and meat inspection. It has been in the news every day this week, followed by feature articles in today's papers.

And rightly so. The horsemeat scandal has been a real wake up call to both consumers, regulators and the industry alike. Today, with no small degree of irony, the NFU pitched in with this piece in The Herald:

"The National Farmers' Union (NFU) Scotland has warned that the country's livestock farmers are becoming increasingly frustrated by the deepening crisis, which is in danger of damaging their livelihoods. Yesterday it called on the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and the Scottish Government to get across to the public that Scotch meat standards remain among the highest in the world."

The irony is that for years parts of the meat industry have been lobbying at EU, UK and Scottish levels for greater self-regulation. Now that they issue has blown up in their faces they want government to act!

As we highlighted yesterday the meat inspection workforce managed by the Food Standards agency has shrunk from a high point of 1700 – during the BSE and e-Coli crises in the 1990s – to around 800 today. This has been a direct consequence of the deregulatory policies of both the European Commission and UK Government to hand over more and more meat inspection duties to the meat industry and dispense with proper independent inspection.

The Scottish Government rightly decided last June to take back operational control of this devolved issue through the establishment of FSA Scotland. Something many parts of the media have overlooked, and perhaps not surprisingly, the Scottish Government have not exactly been shouting loudly about this week.

We warned then that a new food standards body for Scotland could result in watering down of standards and says it must not be used as a backdoor to privatisation. The de-regulating meat lobby has been just as busy in Scotland.

So here are three things that the FSA should do now and Scottish Ministers could also commit to as they introduce the legislation to formally establish the new body:

1. The immediate re-introduction of daily, independent inspections of meat cutting premises,
2. The FSA to oversee the independent inspection of food manufacturing premises –where government cuts have compromised the ability of local environmental health services to do so,
3. The FSA to ensure that all horses killed in the UK for human consumption are tested for the drug “BUTE” and that any horse carcases tested should not be released for human consumption until the test has returned a negative result.

We need a measurable shift away from self-regulation and back to independent inspection at all stages of the food process. Perhaps now the meat lobby will recognise that this is in their interests as well as consumers. 

Horsemeat scandal points to wider food safety concerns

Just about everyone has had some fun in the last week over the horsemeat burgers scandal – “Tesco's burgers, a mane part of a stable diet”, is just one of my favorites. Eating horsemeat in itself may be ‘neigh’ problem, as Christine Jardine argues in today’s Scotsman, but it does raise wider concerns about meat inspection.


With all the focus on horsemeat it has missed most people that the tests also showed that 89% samples had pig meat in them. This is clearly a serious cultural and religious issue for some communities in Scotland and for the rest of us who expect a beefburger to be precisely that. UNISON has previously identified similar concerns over chickens. Ever wondered why some cheap chicken fillets look and taste spongy? It is likely to be that they have been injected with water and pig protein to bulk them up. Check the packet to see what percentage of the chicken is actually chicken next time you buy, or ask the question in the restaurant or carry out.

Proper investment in trading standards and meat hygiene services could have meant the horsemeat burger scandal was picked up in the UK rather than relying on the Irish authorities. However, since 2000 EU officials have tried to push responsibility for abattoir hygiene onto meat plants and to reduce the role of independent meat inspectors, or even transfer their duties under some circumstances to the meat plants themselves. The UK government with its deregulation agenda has also taken hands off approach to meat inspection. Added to which cuts to these vital services are severely limiting the ability of hard-working trading standards officers and meat inspectors to protect the public.

This is now a problem we need to face up to following the announcement last year that Scotland is to have its own food standards body. Something we welcomed in principle but I cautioned that;

“Any change to the delivery module of meat inspection in Scotland should ensure it is protecting the public, not serving industry, therefore we must ensure this is not used as a backdoor to privatisation.”

Scotland has rising levels of E-Coli and our own tragic example of the consequences in the Wishaw outbreak that killed five people. There are over 3,000 reported cases of food poisoning in Scotland every year, although the true figure is thought to be much more as only ten percent of people visit their doctor when they suffer the symptoms. For most of us it can be an unpleasant experience with a day or two off work. However, for vulnerable groups it can be much more serious.

The real danger in this case is the quality and wholesomeness of meat in abattoirs. We need to avoid disease and contamination, and things like excrement making it into our food. This danger is avoided in Scotland by the work of meat inspectors and vets in abattoirs.

Another issue that arises out of the horseburger scandal is food labeling. This is one of the many issues overseen by trading standards officers, yet services across Scotland have reduced as council budgets have dwindled. Trading standards officers work hard to ensure that products pose no risk to consumers, but as their budgets are slashed, their ability to identify problems, inspect premises and prosecute wrongdoers has become severely limited. There are similar issues with Environmental Health staff who are responsible for inspecting food premises.

The public deserve to have confidence in the products they buy; this confidence comes from trading standards services having the resources to check the labeling products and pick up offences early, and from the work of meat inspectors and vets in abattoirs. The issue with horsemeat burgers is yet another example of why the industry should not regulate itself. It is vital that we continue the independent physical inspection of meat in Scotland.