Request for Information Related to Food Standards Scotland Experience of Handling Compliance Cases
Request
Your request was about the following information:
'1. This request for information relates to your experience of handling compliance cases (by which we mean cases involving engagement by you with the firms, organisations, or individuals which you regulate regarding potential breach of their regulatory obligations), the associated timescales and outcomes and your approach to follow up.
2. We wish first of all to know:
(a) how many compliance cases were opened by you in the each of last five calendar years (i.e., 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021);
(b) of the compliance cases opened in each of those years, how many remain open and how many have been resolved;
(c) of the compliance cases opened in each of those years which have been resolved:
(i) how many were resolved without the opening of a formal investigation (by which we mean the exercise of statutory powers to gather information from firms, organisations, or individuals suspected of breaching their regulatory obligations);
(ii) how many (distinguishing between those resolved without the opening of a formal investigation and other cases) were resolved in (i) less than six months; (ii) between six months and 12 months; and (iii) more than 12 months
3. Second, we wish to know, in relation to the resolved cases disclosed in your response to Q2(b) above (and distinguishing in each case between those resolved with and without the opening of a formal investigation) how many resulted in:
(a) a finding or admission of breach on the part of the regulated firm, organisation or individual;
(b) a payment of a financial penalty and/or making of financial redress;
(c) a change (or undertakings as to a change) in the conduct of the regulated firm, organisation or individual;
(d) a change in the senior management of the regulated firm or organisation;
(e) none of the above.
4. Third, we wish to know, in relation to each of those resolved cases disclosed in your responses to Q3(a)-(d) above, in how many of those cases (distinguishing in each case between those resolved with and without the opening of a formal investigation) have you:
(a) followed up with the firm, organisation, or individual to check up on the compliance areas examined in the resolved case;
(b) opened another compliance case (whether related to the resolved case or not) involving the same firm, organisation, or individual.
We then asked you for some further information in order to identify and locate the information that you have asked for. In particular, we asked you for a clarification around the term “compliance cases”: We take various levels of enforcement action in our approved establishments, from interventions, for minor issues, to verbal/ written advice (all classed as informal enforcement), to formal notices and referrals for investigation. As your request focusses on formal investigations, can we assume you are actually interested in the formal enforcement actions only?
Your reply confirming that we are interested only in those cases involving formal notices and referrals for investigation.'
Response
First of all, we would like to advise that we only started recording all our enforcement actions in an easy to report way, via a newly developed Operational Workflow System module, in August 2020, hence this response will only look at formal enforcement actions from August 2020 to December 2021.
2(a)
2020 - 4 Remedial Action Notices
2021 – 1 Hygiene Improvement Notice and 6 Welfare Enforcement Notices.
To note, we also issue a number of detention notices, usually with the sole purpose to ensure product is kept pending arrival of sample results or any further investigation required by FSS. None of these have been breached, hence not included in these figures.
2(b)
All have been closed/ resolved, apart from one that was referred for investigation and resulted in a report to the Procurator Fiscal. The same establishment has also been subject to a review of approval due to non-compliance and their approval has since been withdrawn.
2(c)
(i) 8 resolved without the need for a formal investigation; 2 notices (linked to the same case) triggered an investigation. Another one also, as detailed in above point 2(b).
(ii) all resolved ones have done so in less than 6 months. The 3 formal notices detailed above relate to two cases referred for investigation, both of which were reported to the Procurator Fiscal.
3(a) – 11
(b) – 0
(c) – 11
(d) – 0
(e) – 0
4(a) – 11
(b) – 0
