Scores on the doors

Scores on the Doors refers to the publication in the UK of Food Hygiene inspection summaries by food businesses.

A term perhaps first coined by the British comedian, Larry Grayson, on his quiz show The Generation Game in the 1980s, more recently associated with the publication of Food Hygiene inspection summary information in the UK.At the 2004 CIEH conference, the institute called upon the government to mandate the publication of food inspection information, citing similar schemes in the USA, Canada and Denmark which had been successful in improving compliance and promoting better consumer choice.

On 1 January 2005 the Freedom of Information act (and Environmental Information Regulations) came into effect and local councils slowly began to publish the information on the internet and via certificates. However there was no uniform grading/banding system and many councils chose their own schemes, thus making comparisons difficult and misleading.

The Food Standards Agency recommended a 3 star scheme to its board in March 2008, but the board decided to consult on the option of the Scottish Pass/Fail. Following representation from many stakeholders it agreed to take comment on "any" scheme, although did not specifically seek opinion about about a 5 star option used by 86% of authorities.

By July 2007, over 190 out of 400 authorities were publishing the information. The scheme has proved very popular with the public, one of the websites - www.scoresonthedoors.org.uk - receiving over one million hits per month with an average of 22 page views and 7 minutes per user on the site.

The proposed introduction of a national scheme has generated much discussion as it is likely to have a significant impact, in particular, on the UK catering and hospitality industry. The FSA consultation documents, issued in May 2008, suggest no less than half a million UK businesses could be affected. Much of the UK catering and hospitality industry remains unconvinced of the need for schemes of this nature since the freedom of information act give the public access to all they need. Even industry supporters of the principal have concerns that relate to unfair or inconsistent scoring, gold plating of regulations by individual schemes and lasting and disproportionate harm to reputation since many Authorities refuse revisits after poor scores.

However the major supermarkets concern about just one of their businesses obtaining a poor score detracting from their overall reputation was heavily outweighed by the preferences of consumers and small businesses. An on-line poll (announced on 1 July 2008 by the National Scores on the Doors User Group) over 15,000 members of the public voted over 12:1 in favor of 5 stars over 3 stars; and even higher over Pass/Fail. They also surveyed 779 business of all types and found 87% were either satisfied or very satisfied with the 5 star scheme and less than 3% finding efforts to comply to be burdensome.

External links

*http://scoresonthedoors.org.uk
*http://www.cieh.org/news_and_media/current_cieh_campaigns/reducing_food_poisoning_scores_on_doors.htm
*http://www.food.gov.uk/safereating/hyg/scoresonthedoors/
*http://www.safe2eat.com