1. James Story Senior Environmental Health Officer
Food Safety Rating
Pilot at the City of
Salisbury
Discussion about our teams experience in implementing the pilot program
James Story Senior Environmental Health Officer

2. Food Safety Rating Vs AFSA
New form – better and more detailed inspection, focusing on risk and processing (AFSA) comparison, slightly more time but for better outcomes
- 48 questions vs 35 – Inspections do take longer but time is well spend discussing issues and food safety risks with the business

3. Point of time inspection Observing and validating Business competency
Inspection Process
Point of time inspection
Observing and validating
Business competency
Choosing rating score options
Point of Time inspection – can only assess what you observe at the time – assess most likely processing times
- Tangible vs Intangible can be difficult during an inspection to validate or tick questions that are not observed and discussed only ie cooling
- Need to validate each question
- Need to feel assured or businesses competency and not that they just know the answer
- Options for and 1 or 4 how do you choose? It has become easier with experience
- Need to be cautious with double dipping – additional point scoring in different areas for the same offence -

4. Working with Businesses
Goal Setting for businesses
Linking Inspection Frequency to Performance
Triggers for Enforcement Action
Goal Setting for businesses – Setting a standard and allows businesses to measure improvement
- Incentive for business to improve particularly on minor issues – reward and recognition
- Proprietor have a greater awareness of food safety as their reputation ia at stake
- High performing businesses want to maintain standards and low performing businesses want to improve
- Noticing accelerated improvement particularly around structural issues – Noted on the previous City of Salisbury Pilot program
- Businesses do not like loosing significant points for high risk areas so they pay more attention to these ie handwashing facilities
- Measure of staff performance for management
Potential to link inspections frequency to performance
Enforcement – based on score, number of major non conformances, better tracking of repeated non conformance.
Salisbury’s record score of 66 – score of 12 give you 0 stars. Business is significantly improved following improvement notices and expiations

5. Outcomes from Inspections
Risk focussed inspection
Non Conformance Statistics
Promotes consistency
within our team
Community interest
Significant points lost for higher risk non conformances, ie handwashing, sanitising, temperature control, food handling Notices and expiations are still a useful tool
Non Conformance Statistic – used to highlight common breaches
- Enables an inspection focus
- Better targeted education through newletters and advice
Greater discussion within team about scores, enforcement, why or why not some breaches score points etc