‘Drop in’ web publishing tool enables council to put inspection results online

Salford City Council’s Environmental Health service has become the first UK local authority body to publish fully accessible details of all its food hygiene site inspections, using the new Authority Public Protection web toolkit from Civica plc, one of the UK’s most experienced providers of consulting, software and services for the public sector.

Salford’s environmental health department, which inspects approximately 1,900 food premises in the city, is publishing key findings on a daily basis at – www.salford.gov.uk/scores - under the “Scores on the Doors” food safety initiative. Salford’s campaign is one of a series of first stage information programmes being run by local authorities under the “Scores on the Doors” banner, ahead of a potential national education programme likely to be overseen by the Food Standards Agency (FSA).

The new Authority Public Protection web toolkit from Civica Public Protection takes hygiene inspection data from Salford’s existing Authority database, enabling it to be published on the council’s web site. Civica Public Protection’s ICT experts, working in conjunction with Salford City Council’s web team, were able to install the web toolkit over a couple of days in mid-September to start the project.

With 1.3 million cases of food-related illness recorded in the UK every year¹, and greater public awareness of food safety issues, standards in the food production industry as well as the leisure and catering sectors are coming under ever greater scrutiny.  The whole “Scores on the Doors” philosophy supports environmental health departments’ existing enforcement powers and also aims to generate greater public understanding of food safety matters.  

The new site details each inspected establishment’s food hygiene standards, structural condition and general attitude to food safety legislation.

Councillor Maureen Lea, Lead Member, Environmental Services, at Salford City Council said: “People want to know that they are eating or buying items from the best possible food and catering establishments in the city.  Our “Scores on the Doors” website is the first local authority-hosted site which gives residents detailed information as user-friendly, click through pages and meets all disability legislation requirements.”

Duncan Forrester, Customer Services Director at Civica Public Protection, said: “Salford City Council has quickly seen the need for transparent information about local food premises, whether for people who are eating out or those who wish to understand more about food manufacture in general. The UK, along with the USA and Denmark, is leading the field in directly publishing local information of this type.

“By drawing on our long standing expertise in recording inspection data in the Authority database product, our web toolkit also relieves the council’s environmental health team of the growing administrative burden, not only of maintaining inspection records but also fulfilling requests under the Freedom of Information Act.”

Stockton-On-Tees press release:

Mobile computing boosts Council’s incident response rates

12 September 2006, Sheffield: Stockton Council has joined forces with Civica plc, one of the UK’s most experienced providers of consulting, software and services for the public sector, to help improve anti-social behaviour and envirocrime incident reporting and resource allocation using its Authority Public Protection software.

Civica’s Authority Public Protection system (previously known as ‘Flare’) is enabling the Council’s 24 Neighbourhood Enforcement Officers to report anti-social behaviour and envirocrime incidents more accurately using handheld Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs).

As a result of using the new PDAs, Neighbourhood Enforcement Officers have increased the number of reported incidents from 1700 in 12 months last year to 3154 in 12 weeks this year. 

Councillor Paul Kirton, Stockton Council’s Cabinet Member for Community Safety, said: “Civica’s Authority Public Protection has vastly increased the accuracy and sophistication of reporting so we can quickly and simply see where hotspots of incidents are occurring and deploy resources accordingly in partnership with other local agencies such as the police or fire services, for example.

“I’m a big believer in giving people the right tools for the job and mobile reporting has cut massively the amount of administration that officers are required to complete, resulting in better anti-social behaviour and envirocrime reporting and improved decision-making about priority areas.”

The Neighbourhood Enforcement Officers’ PDAs are automatically updated in real-time using Authority Public Protection and features Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping capabilities to easily see where incidents are occurring. Stockton’s residents can report incidents via the Web as well, which are fed back into the same database, avoiding duplication. 

Using the central database, Stockton Council is also collating wider housing and environmental health data for combined analysis, extending the Home Office’s ‘One Day Count’ categories.

The One Day Count identified the types of anti social behaviour that concern the public the public the most. The Council can now record data in line with the One Day Count categories but has widened data capture beyond that captured by the Police to include enforcement, housing, some Trading Standards such as underage alcohol sales, Care For Your Area and environmental health noise reporting, giving it a more complete picture of the true amount of anti-social behaviour and envirocrime.

Andrea Dell’Aquila, Stockton Council’s Authority System Manager, said: “As a Beacon Council for Community Safety Partnership Work, it is imperative that we have the most accurate and up-to-date information available so that we can continue to provide a high level of service that our citizens have come to expect and work effectively with other public organisations. 

“Authority Public Protection offers Stockton-on-Tees a highly sophisticated, yet easy-to-use, system for data capture and analysis of anti-social behaviour and envirocrime, giving us the ability to deploy resources more efficiently.”

Gavin Freed, Managing Director, Civica, said: “Community enforcement is a highly visible front line service and it is imperative to be able to see the overall picture and to target effective and rapid response. Through a combination of sector insight and flexible systems, we are committed to helping our customers to respond to the needs of their community and to reach out with improved services.”



      Newsletter Articles:

    Tony Hughes Intro
    News - CPP User Group Annual Conference
    Press Releases
    Training News
    Welcome new CPP customers
    Hotline Update
    Hot Topic - GIS Toolkit
    Product Updates
    CPP Team News
    Users Column