FSA’s food hygiene scheme should be compulsory, says government report

Restaurants and food businesses across the UK may soon be forced to display their food hygiene rating, following recommendations from a government report that the Food Standards Agency’s (FSA) scheme becomes mandatory.​
  
 Prepared on request by Prime Minister David Cameron, Lord Young’s Common Sense, Common Safety report sets out a number of national recommendations on the future of health and safety in the nation.
  
 Among these is a call for the FSA’s Food Hygiene Rating Scheme (FHRS) to be deployed on a national basis.
  
Food Hygiene Rating Scheme​
  
 The scheme – which means that restaurants, pubs and hotels will have their hygiene ratings made public – was this month rolled out in local authorities in Wales​, with councils in certain regions in England expected to follow suit at a later date.
  
 The FHRS displays ratings on a numeric scale: A rating of five indicates very good food hygiene standards, four means good, three is generally satisfactory, two shows improvement necessary, one is urgent improvement necessary and a zero rating is urgent improvement necessary.
  
 The ratings are voluntarily displayed at hospitality businesses through logos, certificates and stickers, with a publicly-available online database also being tested.

However, with several local authorities still choosing to stick by their own hygiene rating schemes, Lord Young suggested that one single mandatory initiative would be more effective in tackling poor food hygiene.
  
 “I believe that consistency is essential for this approach to be effective. A mandatory national food hygiene rating scheme will deliver the maximum benefit to consumers and minimise the costs to businesses, so this single scheme must be rolled out across all local authorities,” he writes in his report.
  
Tool for restaurant reviews​
  
 He adds that the scheme would also provide media with an important information source when reviewing food businesses.
  
 “I believe that businesses that fail to achieve a ‘generally satisfactory’ rating should not benefit from media publicity; indeed, the challenging spotlight of the media will encourage them to improve.”
  
 Lord Young said that if the scheme can harness media and consumer power as expected, then it should not be necessary to require businesses to display ratings.  However, he recommends that the success of a voluntary display approach should be reviewed after 12 months, after which point it should be made compulsory if necessary.
  
 “It is important that the scheme is successfully up and running in readiness for the increased number of tourists that the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will attract.”
  
 The FSA said: “We are pleased that Lord Young recognises the clear benefits to having a single national scheme. It will present consumers with easy to use information on food hygiene standards when eating out or shopping for food, and will provide a level playing field for businesses.”
  
 In a foreword to the report, David Cameron says the government fully supports Lord Young’s proposals and will begin to act on the report.  Lord Young will act as advisor to the Prime Minister on the recommendations raised.