Here is a summary of the scheduled discussions for the General Purposes Committee meeting. The meeting was scheduled to cover the approval of minutes from a previous meeting and the Food and Health and Safety Service Plans for 2025-2026. The committee was expected to review the activities of the Food and Workplace & Public Safety Teams and endorse the proposed approaches for the coming year.

Food and Health and Safety Service Plans 2025-2026

The General Purposes Committee was scheduled to review and consider the Food and Health and Safety Service Plans for 2025-2026. Councillor Kamaljit Kaur Nagpal, Decent Living Incomes, was expected to present the report, with support from Joe Blanchard, Head of Environmental Health and Trading Standards.

The report pack included the Food Service Plan 2025-2026¹ and the Health and Safety Service Plan 2025-2026² as appendices.

The Food Service Plan outlined the statutory duties of Ealing Council as a Food Authority under the Food Safety Act 1990. It noted that Ealing has one of the highest numbers of food establishments of all the London boroughs, with around 3,500 registered premises. The plan detailed the team's objectives, which include delivering a food service as required by the Food Law Code of Practice (FLCOP), responding to food incidents and complaints, improving compliance rates among food businesses, and working with businesses and other agencies to ensure food safety and accurate labelling.

The plan reviewed service delivery and performance for 2024-2025, noting that the service successfully carried out almost all due interventions, with only 18 inspections overdue by 31 March 2025. It also highlighted the elimination of the backlog of Food Hygiene Cat E premises and a record number of interventions completed. The overall compliance rate for food businesses in Ealing was reported to be 88%. The plan also detailed the number of food standards interventions completed and the administrative burden of new food establishments.

The plan forecast service demands for 2025-2026, anticipating a need for approximately 2,031 interventions for the food hygiene inspection programme. It also identified potential challenges, risks, and threats to service delivery, including service reorganisation, staff resourcing, the new food standards delivery model, new businesses, premises turnover, the cost of living/energy crisis, food fraud, compliance rates and enforcement action, action days, product recalls, and a new management information system.

The Health and Safety Service Plan outlined the aims and scope of the Workplace and Public Safety Team, which include preventing accidents, injuries, work-related deaths, and work-related illnesses in workplaces. The plan detailed the team's responsibilities, including investigating complaints, workplace incidents, and infectious diseases, as well as working with the Licensing Team on relevant applications.

The plan presented service data for 2023-2024 and 2024-2025, including the number of service requests received, visits to investigate health and safety complaints, RIDDOR notifications and investigations, and infectious diseases notifications. It also detailed the proactive work and enforcement actions taken by the team.

The plan outlined the team's proactive work and targets for 2025-2026, including campaigns focused on LPG gas safety at Acton Business Centre, trampoline parks, safety in the motorsport and motor leisure industries, work-related stress, and high-volume warehousing/distribution.

The plan also addressed internal organisation and planning, including staffing allocation and development, potential challenges, risks, and threats, information and data management, quality assessment, oversight, and internal monitoring, and review, variation, and improvement.

Minutes

The minutes from the previous General Purposes Committee meeting held on 17 September 2024 at Perceval House were included in the report pack. Councillor Tariq Mahmood, Chair, along with Councillors Yoel Gordon, Ian Kingston, Anthony Young, Harbhajan Kaur Dheer, and Gareth Shaw were in attendance in person. Councillor Kanwal Kaur Bains, Vice-Chair, and Councillor G Quansah attended virtually.

During the previous meeting, Joe Blanchard, Head of Environmental Health and Trading Standards, and Izabela Gregory, Food Safety and Licensing Manager, presented a report outlining the food safety and health and safety services within the council. The presentation covered the work carried out by the food and workplace safety teams, delivery of the previous financial year, service demands for the current year, and proactive work.

The Food Safety Service includes 8 officers assisted by 2.5 team leaders, who are responsible for inspection service of close to 3500 food premises. Each of these premises receive visits, the frequency of the visits being dependent on the risk the premises poses. Following from such inspections, the food safety team reward a hygiene rating from 0-5, with 0 being the lowest compliance and 5 having very good standards observed. The team also take under many re-visits to premises in which non-compliance was found. The food safety team also respond to allegations of food poisoning as well as assist with the import of food safety control by issuing certificates which allow local businesses to import food abroad. Izabela explained to the committee that Ealing is in the top five in terms of the volume of food businesses. It was also mentioned that Ealing is unique not only due to the volume but also the complexity. Ealing has over three hundred manufacturers with sixty-one approved food premises, therefore making it a difficult landscape to enforce regulations and ensure all the businesses are complying with food and health and safety regimes. The committee were told that in the last financial year, the team received over one thousand new food premises registrations, varying from child minders, home caterers and big manufacturers.

The Workplace Safety Team responds to workplace accidents and fatalities and around 300 complaints about health and safety practices each year. They also undertake proactive campaigns and enforcement action, including infectious diseases management and smoke-free work, particularly associated with shisha premises.

The committee discussed the increase in food business registrations, retention of contractors, key projects focusing on swimming pools and funeral directors, safety advisory groups, and an increase in sampling sent to public analysts. The committee also discussed funding for free food safety advice and the regulation of shisha premises.