Meat inspectors accuse FSA of 'back-door' privatisation plan

Meat hygiene inspectors' union Unison has accused the Food Standards Agency (FSA) of planning to water down inspection rules in preparation for back-door privatisation of the Meat Hygiene Service (MHS).

It called the FSA's draft interpretation of new European Union (EU) hygiene regulations, governing poultry plants in particular, "a charter for privatisation and poorer consumer safety standards". Unison's national officer for the MHS, Ben Priestley, said: "The FSA's version of the new regulations is more to do with protecting the profits of the UK poultry industry, than the health and safety of UK consumers."

He said the EU regulations were designed to ensure that private and public sector inspectors received the same training and held the same qualifications, but that the FSA wanted inspectors employed by slaughterhouses to be qualified to the same level for specific tasks only. "Company inspectors will continue to receive patchy and inadequate training," he said. "UK consumers will be put at risk as a result."

Unison has warned that self-inspection by firms in the US has caused many problems. It said that inspectors were vulnerable to pressure by piecework employees, with "a lot of issues around violence and intimidation"

In a Unison survey of its MHS meat inspection members, 98% did not trust the industry to carry out inspections and 92% did not believe that hazard analysis critical control points (HACCP) had improved meat quality. "If HACCP has failed, it pulls the rug out from under the FSA's attempt to use the forthcoming regulations to underpin further privatisation of meat inspection," said Priestley.

Meanwhile, an inquiry for the FSA has condemned failings by the MHS, the government, the FSA and contractors for 261 'casualty cattle' entering the food chain without being tested for BSE.

"The requirements and the objectives of testing were not clearly agreed or communicated effectively," it found. It highlighted inadequate supervision of official veterinary surgeons, poor training and a high turnover of such staff, which is running at 25% a year.