Food safety: whose responsibility is it?

Periodically, when food poisoning outbreaks hit the headlines, the public gets understandably outraged about the issue. Television documentary series such as Life of Grime have highlighted the role of environmental health officers, who check the way in which places serving food, including pubs, carry on their business.

This is not good PR for the pub trade generally, even though it is a small minority who may break the rules. But just as important is to find out whether it is an individual case of sloppy behaviour or a general problem within the company.

This has been brought home to me recently because of a chat I had with a pub manager. He has been notified of a serious complaint concerning the state of the food preparation area, which the operating company had been promising to fix for some time.

His question, which is an interesting one, is: if legal action is started, whose responsibility is it his personally (because he holds the licence) or the company?

It is true that there are provisions in food-hygiene legislation allowing environmental health officers to work 'up the chain, even going so far as company directors and secretaries, in an attempt to find out who is respon- sible for a particular house.

It is also true that in very serious cases, individual 'pro- prietors can be banned from running a food business and that means running pubs, too. This, of course, does not add up to an absolute responsibility for the last cheese sandwich or ham salad served in any pub. But it does create problems concerning the fabric of the building and the question of 'due diligence in relation to food-safety matters.

A case involving a Midland brewer in 1990 at least cleared up the question of whether breweries could be held liable for the acts or omissions of their tenants. The judge held that it was the tenants who were carrying on the food business and that no liability attached to the brewery.

But the situation is obviously different in a managed house. Here it is the company that has ultimate responsibility for what goes on, unless it can show that it delegated all such matters to the manager and used 'due diligence in instructing him what to do.

The situation changes when an improvement notice is issued, which lists, among other things, defects to the food preparation room or the windows, or the fabric of the building.

In such circumstances there is an interesting dilemma. Some of the improvements may not be the manager's responsibility under his existing agreement. Or there may have been an undertaking by the company that something would be done 'in due course.

Failure to carry out the remedies listed in an improvement notice is an offence, although there is provision for appealing against them if they are unreasonable.

But the notice is served upon the proprietor of the food busi-ness, and in this question, that probably means the company.

In certain cases, if the enforcement officer thinks the premises are unsuitable, he can seek a prohibition order, which will effectively close the kitchen until work is carried out. This specifically refers to 'the construction of the premises.

For long-term brewery leaseholders, their new style of leases contain, among other things, fairly stringent requirements on repairing.

It is usually entirely the responsibility of the tenant to keep the building in good order and fit for its purpose, and this would mean that the brewery would have no responsibility for structural defects (unless they were specifically made part of the original agreement).