Policy paper

Regulatory Audit

Published 25 June 2011

Applies to England, Northern Ireland and Wales

1. Regulatory Audit

Part of our job is to evaluate the effectiveness of the official controls system in England, Wales and NI. To do this we plan and carry out audit programmes in each country.

The official controls audited cover a diverse range of activities from primary production on farms, eggs, dairy, slaughterhouses, cutting plants, animal feed, shellfish and fishery products, through to the retail sector such as supermarkets, butchers, restaurants.

The official controls system is operated by food and feed enforcement officers from competent authorities including, local authority, port health authority, the FSA itself, either directly or through contracts or service level agreements with other organisations such as the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) in Northern Ireland.

2. Shared Focused Audits

Focused audits look at specific aspects of local authority enforcement work.

Local Authority Recovery Plan Assurance Assessment: Summary Report (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) February 2023

3. Regulatory Audit Charter

Food Standards Agency (FSA) audits of competent authorities (CAs) provide assurance that the delivery of official controls for feed and food is compliant with UK legal requirements and official guidance.

Competent Authorities (CAs) include Food Standards Agency (FSA), Local Authorities, and the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs. 

The power to set standards and monitor CAs’ food law enforcement services was conferred on the FSA by the Food Standards Act 1999 and the Official Feed and Food Controls (England) Regulations 2009 (and parallel legislations The Official Feed and Food Controls (Wales) Regulations 2009 and The Official Feed and Food Controls (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2009).

Our audits are designed to verify the effective implementation of planned arrangements and to assess whether the planned arrangements are suitable to achieve the objectives of the relevant legal requirements and guidance. Our Regulatory Audit Manuals provide details on how we conduct these audits.

The aims of the FSA Regulatory audit function are to:

• Help to protect public health by promoting effective enforcement of food law 
• Maintain and improve consumer confidence in the system of official controls
• Assist in the identification and dissemination of good practice to aid consistency 
• Provide information to aid the formulation of FSA policy 
• Promote conformance to central guidance or Codes of Practice 
• Provide a means to identify underperformance in CA food law service delivery 
• Promote inter-authority auditing and peer review 
• Identify continuous improvement 

Principles:

1. All audit programmes must be selected based on a documented risk- based planning process.
2. Every audit programme must include clear objectives.
3. Every audit programme plan must ensure the audit team is resourced with the appropriate/specific technical competency to achieve the objectives of the audit programme.
4. The audit team will apply continuous improvement principles, to all areas of the audit system.
5. The audit team will be proactive in providing clarity to CAs (auditees) including, communication before, feedback during and feedback after all audit engagements. 
6. Each auditee will be provided with clear audit findings in a written report of the audit engagement. 
7. Auditees will, through recommendations made in the audit report, have a clear understanding of what improvements are required and agreed dates for their implementation through the action plan detailed in their audit report. 
8. The auditee will be given the opportunity to provide written feedback after an audit which will be recorded and independently reviewed.

Local Authority Audit in England

Local Authority Audit in Wales

Borough and District Council Audit in Northern Ireland