Southend's food team has 4.75 officers for work needing 6.48, and complaints rose to 276 last year. The plan goes to Cabinet on Monday 12 October.

Southend’s food safety team is 1.73 full-time posts short of what it needs to inspect the city’s food businesses this year. That is the council’s own figure, in the food control plan going to Cabinet on Monday 12 October.

The plan says the inspection programme needs 6.48 full-time staff. The team has 4.75, and that count includes a contractor paid for out of an empty post (service plan).

Meanwhile the work is growing. Food complaints and requests for help reached 276 in 2025-26, up from 158 three years earlier.

The workload, in the council’s figures

The city had 1,581 registered food businesses on 31 March 2026. Of those, 659 are due a food hygiene inspection in 2026-27, and 276 a food standards inspection, which checks things like labelling and allergens.

How often a business is inspected depends on its risk rating:

Risk band Inspected every Businesses Due this year
A 6 months 2 2
B 12 months 47 47
C 18 months 279 169
D 2 years 719 337
E 3 years 474 68
Awaiting inspection, including overdue 36 36

The plan also flags a new job. There are 103 registered childminders in the city, and each now has to be assessed to decide whether it needs a food inspection.

The staffing gap

The team’s staffing in the plan:

  • three food officers in post, each working 0.8 of a full-time week
  • 0.8 of a vacant post, used to pay a contractor to carry out inspections
  • 0.8 of an enforcement officer, half of a manager’s time, and a further 0.25 of contracted inspections

The council budgets £341,150 for the service this year, of which £328,250 is staffing and £11,800 is contracted inspections. The plan says the team “had a vacancy which it had not been able to fill” last year. The officer who covered the lowest-risk businesses has since left, and the council is recruiting.

Despite that, the team says it finished almost all of last year’s hygiene inspections:

  • every A and B rated business, the highest risk
  • 99% of C rated and 98% of D and E rated businesses
  • 88% of new, unrated businesses

Food standards checks fell further behind. Only 53% of those due on the longest cycle were done.

Complaints are rising

Bar chart of food safety and standards service requests to Southend council: 423 in 2021-22, 158 in 2022-23, 171 in 2023-24, 235 in 2024-25 and 276 in 2025-26. Source: the council's food control service plan 2026-27.
Food safety and standards service requests, 2021-22 to 2025-26. Chart by Southend Today
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Service requests about food safety and standards have risen for three years running: 158 in 2022-23, 171 in 2023-24, 235 in 2024-25 and 276 in 2025-26. The 2021-22 figure was higher still, at 423. The plan does not explain that peak. The team also handled 215 infectious disease investigations last year, about the same as the year before.

Some figures went the other way. The team responded to 96 event applications, down from 136, though the plan says some events have grown longer and bigger. It took 151 microbiological samples, up from 103.

What the inspectors did about it

Enforcement in food businesses in 2025-26, from the plan:

Action 2025-26 2024-25
Prosecutions 0 0
Improvement notices 2 2
Prohibitions and voluntary closures 5 5
Seizures and detentions 11 13
Imported food actions 4 not counted
Actions against approved premises 2 0

The team also polices illegal shellfish picking on the foreshore. A weekend of action on 2 and 3 August 2025 engaged 24 people and removed 294.7kg of shellfish from potentially reaching the market. Police and inspectors were back on Chalkwell beach last month, as we reported.

That “94% scored 5” claim

The council’s press release about the plan says “94% of the premises included in the scheme scored a 5/5” (council news). The plan itself says something different. It says that on 31 March, 95.4% of premises in the scheme were rated 3 or above, not 5.

We checked the Food Standards Agency’s register for Southend on 7 October. Of the 1,383 businesses with a number rating, 989 are rated 5. That is 71.5%. A further 237 are rated 4 and 115 are rated 3, so 97.0% are rated 3 or above (FSA ratings for Southend). The 94% five-star figure does not match the register or the council’s own plan.

Two other figures in the plan do not quite agree with each other. One section says 213 new food businesses registered during 2025-26; a note under a table says 183. Neither changes the picture.

What it means for you

  • Check before you eat: every rated business in the city is on the FSA’s ratings site, and our September ratings round-up lists the newest.
  • Report a problem: complaints about a food business go to the council through its food safety page.
  • Run a food business: a new business is triaged on risk when it registers, and those assessed as needing an early visit are inspected within 28 days. Register before you open.

Cabinet meets at 6pm on Monday 12 October. The papers are on the council’s meeting page.

Sources