Council offers up to £70 an hour amid food inspector shortage

Richard Youle, Local Democracy Reporter

A shortage of food hygiene inspectors is hampering a council’s ability to carry out inspections despite offers of £60 to £70 an hour for agency staff.

Ian Jones, Carmarthenshire Council’s head of leisure and public protection, said the recruitment challenge was not unique to Carmarthenshire.

A scrutiny committee report said at the end of the third quarter of 2025-26 the council was inspecting 42.5% of high risk food businesses that were scheduled for a “programmed hygiene intervention”. The end-of-year target is 100%.

The report said high demand, qualification requirements and private sector opportunities were among the issues and added: “Such constraints continue to impact the section’s ability to fully meet programmed service delivery and statutory expectations.”

The council was also completing only 43.2% of high risk food businesses due a “programmed standards intervention”. Again the end-of-year target is 100%.

The report said a new food standards delivery model was pending which was likely to increase inspection frequencies, and that the council would seek to use a private contractor to help ease the situation.

Cllr Kevin Madge, chairman of the place, sustainability and climate change scrutiny committee, said members had been concerned for quite some time about these figures and that the matter would be referred with colleagues’ approval to cabinet.

He handed over to Cllr Colin Evans, saying he had years of expertise in this field. Cllr Evans, who said it had been a while since he had been directly involved, felt the 100% targets were not achievable and that it was very important to meet statutory expectations.

He said moving staff from other departments to help, as the council was doing, was “a sticking plaster approach and we are running out of sticking plasters”.

Referring to the intention to use a private contractor, he said: “How much is this going to cost?” The situation was, he said, “quite serious” and “Should something go wrong it could go wrong very quickly.”

Cllr Madge said the zero to five sticker system that food premises must display was “the best thing that has come in” but that some businesses still weren’t doing their job properly.

“We need to make sure these places are policed properly,” he said.

Cllr Aled Vaughan Owen, cabinet member for climate change, decarbonisation and sustainability, said the council was taking what was a national issue very seriously.  “There are a number of authorities who are in a similar position,” he said. “It comes down to recruitment.”

He said the food hygiene team worked very hard and that public safety was of paramount importance to the council.

Mr Jones said Wales-wide discussions were happening at director level and that it was a recruitment rather than resourcing issue particularly for higher-qualified food hygiene staff.

“You have got agencies then charging an absolute fortune, really, for people who have possibly retired or left the industry but are willing to come back in and do some work,” he said. “We have tried to engage with agency staff but again we are struggling to find them, even if you’re paying £60 to £70 an hour. It’s very, very difficult to find people because they are in demand so much.”

He said the council would seek to “grow our own” in terms of staffing as much as possible but that it wasn’t a quick fix. He also said other council employees such as catering staff might be able to support lower risk work being done by inspectors.

Mr Jones said despite a lot of professionalism and expertise within the relevant team it was “highly unlikely” that the end-of-year targets would be met. A recovering plan was in place and that discussions were ongoing from the Food Standards Agency (FSA).

Public protection manager Heidi Neil said the council had food-qualified staff in other sections following a restructure and that they were being trained up again to try to get rid of the inspection backlog. She added that highest-qualified inspectors would target highest-risk premises.

The report added that 81% of council targets which fell within the wider subject under discussion about helping people and the environment be healthy and safe were on target.

The FSA told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that councils were making good progress on food safety and standards checks but that the rise in new businesses was increasing the workload.

Sarah Aza, its head of delivery, said: “There aren’t enough trained officers coming through, and recruitment remains a challenge across the UK.” She said the FSA was working with governments and others to increased the skilled workforce needed.

She added: “If a local authority is concerned about meeting its legal inspection duties, we ask them to get in touch with us early. We encourage them to prioritise the highest risk businesses first, and we can then support them to develop an action plan and, when necessary, escalate concerns with senior leaders in the council. These checks are a legal requirement, so early contact with us is crucial.”