Brasserie Blanc has become the first restaurant group to sign up to a new government scheme that allows companies with multiple sites to deal with just one local council for health and safety and food hygiene issues.
Under the Primary Authority (PA) scheme, all seven of the company’s restaurants will deal directly with its elected authority - Bristol City Council - on issues of food hygiene and health and safety even if they are in another area of the country.
The scheme is designed to give companies consistent advice on certain areas of legislation and is expected to eventually save UK businesses an estimated £50m a year.
Although members of a restaurant’s local authority will still be able to visit their sites to carry out health and safety and food hygiene checks, they will have to refer back to the PA if they have any queries and also notify them if they are going to carry out checks.
“Local authorities can go and see the premises, but if what they say to staff is inconsistent with the advice given by a company’s PA the business can query it,” said a spokeswoman for the scheme.
“Also, if you have premises in different areas your head office may end up being contacted by lots of different local authorities. Under this scheme, the authorities go to the PA first who will deal with you direct. It cuts out companies having to field all those calls from different areas about the same thing.”
Brasserie Blanc managing director, John Lederer, said the scheme would help the business run more efficiently: "It's wonderful that we have one authority which can efficiently ensure all our brasseries are run to the same high standards,” he said.
The scheme is open to all companies who trade across more than two local authority areas. It means companies can elect one local authority to deal with all aspects of environmental health and trading standards for all sites. However, alcohol licensing will still be dealt with on a local level.
For more information about the scheme visit www.lbro.org.uk.