As an Environmental Health Officer (EHO) who has been out of local authority employment for more than 10 years, I have a couple of points to make regarding the horse meat scandal ("Lasagne horse meat warning", The Herald, February 8).
As an Environmental Health Officer (EHO) who has been out of local authority employment for more than 10 years, I have a couple of points to make regarding the horse meat scandal (\"Lasagne horse meat warning\", The Herald, February 8).
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First, I think this is an indictment of the rush to light-touch regulation of industry in general and the food industry in particular. These days most large manufacturers have entered a primary authority arrangement with a local authority whereby the authority is responsible for the oversight of any regulatory actions carried out by all other authorities. In reality this means a lot of the previous checks and balances of local EHOs – for example, taking food samples throughout the UK – have fallen by the wayside. If you let these companies effectively self-regulate you will get results like those we have seen recently.
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Indictment of food regulation system
As an Environmental Health Officer (EHO) who has been out of local authority employment for more than 10 years, I have a couple of points to make regarding the horse meat scandal ("Lasagne horse meat warning", The Herald, February 8).
First, I think this is an indictment of the rush to light-touch regulation of industry in general and the food industry in particular. These days most large manufacturers have entered a primary authority arrangement with a local authority whereby the authority is responsible for the oversight of any regulatory actions carried out by all other authorities. In reality this means a lot of the previous checks and balances of local EHOs – for example, taking food samples throughout the UK – have fallen by the wayside. If you let these companies effectively self-regulate you will get results like those we have seen recently.
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We moderate all comments on HeraldScotland on either a pre-moderated or post-moderated basis. If you're a relatively new user then your comments will be reviewed before publication and if we know you well then your comments will be subject to moderation only if other users or the moderators believe you've broken the rules, which are available here.
Moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours. Please be patient if your posts are not approved instantly.
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