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SUBMISSION TO THE NEW ZEALAND FOOD SAFETY AUTHORITY Hospitality Association of New Zealand
The Hospitality Association of New Zealand (HANZ) is a voluntary trade association with over 2,200 members nationally. Members come from across the hospitality industry including:
A significant portion of our members’ businesses have a primary focus on food. The Sale of Liquor Act 1989 requires that all premises licensed to sell liquor for consumption on the premises have available a range of food items at all times they are open for the sale of liquor. This requirement means that virtually all of our members (excluding off-licences) have a food component to their business. Food safety is therefore of significant importance to our members. Compliance with food safety legislation is only one of many compliance requirements facing hospitality businesses. The majority of our members employ less than 10 employees and are often “owner operators”. Compliance costs are a major concern to our members. Opening Comments The Hospitality Association has previously submitted its position on the first five papers put forward for consultation. The Association has endeavoured to put forward the views of the industry we represent as best as we can given the number of options put forward in the various papers. It is difficult to give a definitive view when there are numerous decisions to be made to determine a clear proposed regime for the future. The Association acknowledges that the next phase of consultation later in the year will provide more certainty regarding the proposed regime for the future with appropriate corresponding detail and we look forward to providing more complete and authoritative submissions at that point. The Association would like to encourage NZFSA to clearly indicate its intentions regarding mandatory training as part of the next phase as we believe this will have a substantial impact on compliance costs and industry’s ability and willingness to embrace the new regime. Paper 6: Compliance and Sanctions: Criteria and tools for the future The Association is primarily interested in compliance and sanctions as they relate to the hospitality industry. The five principles adopted in the paper are logical and reasonable. The Association particularly supports Principle 4, that the regulator will apply a set of assessment criteria to measure the seriousness of each non-compliance and thus the appropriate response. Consistency and equity, as outlined in Principle 5, are also important criteria for any compliance and sanctions mechanism to work effectively and have the support of industry. Principle 3, which provides for a range of tools available both non-regulatory and regulatory to give flexibility in responses is also supported so long as it does not compromise consistency and equity and can be clearly understood by industry. The assessment criteria outlined in the paper appears thorough and fair and should provide transparency and clarity to industry if adopted as the criteria to be used by the regulator going forward. One aspect which is not made explicitly clear in the paper is what appeal process there will be available to the food operator after a determination of non-compliance and appropriate sanction is made by the regulator. The Association strongly recommends appropriate appeal processes are considered and adopted as part of the compliance and sanctions processes. Many of the tools available currently and the additional ones proposed have the potential to have a very strong negative impact on business, particularly SMEs. There must in the Association’s view be an appropriate appeal process which is cost effectively operated (so as not to exclude or disadvantage SMEs), available to ensure these tools are used justly. Possible additional tools to manage and prevent non-compliance A comprehensive list of options has been included in the paper. Many of the schemes rank performance either by providing an incentive or an award to good operators or by imposing a disincentive on poor performers (or a combination of both). The Association struggles to see how these performance based systems will work in the context of food control plans (FCP) where it is assumed an inadequate FCP would not be approved. Surely the FCP is either satisfactory in ensuring the food produced is safe or it is not. The Association questions whether there can there be “levels of safety”? The process of approval and verification of FCPs will become much more involved, and costly if there is a ranking system rather than a straightforward standard to be reached. Issues around consistency and equity across the sector and the country may become more challenging. These types of schemes have the potential to benefit big business over the SME sector. A global chain for example will be in a much better position to perform well and achieve the ticks in the right boxes than a stand alone family operated food business which is already faced with the challenge of a myriad of competing compliance requirements. There is also the risk that this approach could have unintended consequences of motivating operators to perform to the scheme rather than in the most effective way so as to produce safe food. If the outcomes the schemes do not match exactly with the practices required to produce safe food the drivers could be counter productive. Often the outcomes that can be easily measured by inspection are those which are not that important which is the major flaw identified with the current Food Hygiene Regulations. Further detail on such schemes would be useful to ensure the outcomes rewarded are those that are the most important in delivering a lower incidence of food borne illness. These types of schemes may well have some merit in a transitional phase from the old legislation to the new legislation to encourage rapid movement to the new system assuming a voluntary transitional phase is anticipated as part of the new requirements. - Incentive schemesNot withstanding the comments above the Association supports the premise that good performers should pay less than “abusers”. - Award and recognition schemesAs mentioned above it is difficult to see how this could be used in conjunction with FCPs other than as an incentive to move operators to the new system during a voluntary compliance period. - Grading systems (name and shame)If an operator is performing so badly that they should be named and shamed would their FCP be deemed to be adequate? This is a negative system which can have huge impacts on the SME sector and the Association is not supportive of this type of approach. - Public apologiesOnce again this approach can have significant negative impact on businesses, particularly SMEs and the severity of the impact is difficult to predict and impossible to graduate. While it is acknowledged that if this option were adopted it may be as one of a range of sanctions that could be used when repeated non-compliance has occurred, the Association has reservations about it being used consistently and fairly. We suggest some of the other options proposed are more appropriate for the food retail sector. - Diversion schemesIt is difficult to see how this option would apply to the food retail sector particularly where SMEs are involved. It appears to have the potential to become overly complicated, legalistic and expensive to administer and is not favoured by the Association. - Improvement noticesThis approach seems logical, simple and convenient to administer and should provide clarity to the operator whether large or small. The Association supports this option so long as it is uncomplicated, timely, reasonable and fair in relation to the performance deficits. Consistency across the sector and the country are also of great importance to the success of this option. - Infringement noticesThe Association’s view is that infringement notices are useful if used judiciously and this often depends on the approach of the regulatory authority that issues them. For example if NZFSA is the issuing body then over zealous use of infringement notices could seriously damage the relationship between the NZFSA and industry. If it is the TLA or PHU that is responsible for the issuing then there is great potential for inconsistency and inequity across the country and compromised relationships. The Association acknowledges that infringement notices may have a role to play as they are convenient, timely and cost effective but there is the potential for inappropriate use which would not be constructive. A transparent, reasonable and explicit policy and procedure around the use of infringement notices would be essential if they are adopted. - Prohibition noticesThis option seems quite complicated and fraught with the potential for inconsistent and inappropriate use. It has the potential to require a significant amount of bureaucracy to manage and is not likely to be well accepted by industry. - Demerit pointsThis system while innovative in approach also appears to require a significant amount of bureaucracy to manage and is likely to become highly complicated and expensive to administer. It has the potential to be poorly understood by SMEs and therefore may not succeed in motivating high levels of compliance.
Paper 7: Criteria and processes for various approvals This paper does not have direct relevance to our members. However, the Association in general supports the 4 principles presented in this paper. Concluding Comments The issue of non-compliance and consequent use of sanctions is an important issue for the hospitality industry to consider as there is the potential for serious impact to businesses through some of the proposed sanctions. In general the Association supports Improvement Notices the most strongly as they seem to have the best potential to be administered cost effectively and to bring about the changes required by industry without the risk of the sanction unintentionally putting the operator out of business. An appeal process is strongly recommended also. The Association looks forward to the next phase of consultation when many of the options in the various areas have been narrowed and more focused input can be provided on behalf of industry. Raewyn Bleakley 30 August 2005 |
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