DIRTY, unsafe or poorly-managed restaurants and takeaways will be made to pay if they want inspectors to give them new food hygiene ratings.
The Public Protection Partnership (PPP) — the licensing, health and trading standards representing Wokingham Borough Council, West Berkshire Council and Bracknell Forest Council — does not currently charge businesses for ‘out of routine’ food inspections.
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Restaurants, pubs, chippies and other establishments which serve food could now have to pay more than £50 an hour to ask an officer to re-inspect and then re-score their business.
Bracknell Forest councillor John Porter said: “If a premises falls below a certain standard, surely we should be looking at charging them to do the re-inspections and that would raise the standard of our food premises.”
READ MORE: Five of the latest food hygiene ratings from around Bracknell Forest
If businesses score a zero or a one rating, meaning ‘major improvement’ is necessary, their premises are visited again six months later.
Better performers are inspected less regularly, according to PPP officer George Lawrence.
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Cllr Porter asked if there was an incentive for eateries to pay for re-inspection, to which PPP manager Sean Murphy said there was.
He added: “We know from dealing with some of the premises that having a poor rating really does affect them.
“They’re desperate, quite often, to get that rating changed.”
The PPP has received 57 rescore requests from businesses across the three local authority areas in the last three years, totalling more than 200 officer hours.
READ MORE: The latest food hygiene ratings from around Wokingham borough
If the service had charged for these requests, it could have brought in more than £11,000 in income based on a £56 hourly fee.
The income generated would be used to contribute to funding for inspecting officers, according to a PPP report.
Councillors from the three councils agreed to go-ahead with these plans at a meeting on Thursday, January 30.
This came after Cllr John Harrison said: “I think it’s only fair to the wide range of businesses in our area that do get high ratings that they don’t share the cost of re-inspection for places that aren’t up to scratch.”
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