UK forced to bridge data gap after losing food alerts access

THE UK’s food safety regulator has been forced to bridge gaps in its data after losing full access to EU alerts when the UK left the trade bloc, a watchdog has found.

A number of information sharing arrangements with EU regulators ceased on Britain’s departure from the union, with UK bodies, including the Food Standards Agency (FSA), moving to put in place alternative systems as a result, according to a new report from the National Audit Office (NAO).

The UK regulators say the loss of data access has negatively impacted their ability to assess risks and carry out their work, the watchdog said, and have turned to international systems, publicly available information and case-by-case arrangements to make up the difference.

The NAO report explored the impact of Brexit on three regulators: the FSA, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

It said all three have been forced to assume “significant new responsibilities” as a result of the country leaving the EU, with HSE now the main regulator for chemicals in the UK, the FSA taking on an expanded remit for assessing food safety risks, and the CMA faced with larger and more complex competition and merger cases.

They are all finding it challenging to recruit the specialist skills they need in some key areas, the watchdog found, with HSE, for example, expecting it will be another four years before it reaches the full capacity it has planned for its post-EU exit regulatory regime.

And, having used EU databases for regulatory activities, the FSA, CMA and HSE all identified loss of data sharing arrangements as having a “negative impact” on their ability to assess risks or carry out their work, the NAO said.

For example, at the end of the Brexit transition period, the FSA lost access to parts of the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF), which it used to exchange information about food safety risks and responses across the EU.

The NAO said access was also lost to the Trade Control and Expert System (TRACES), which provides information on imports, and the Alert and Cooperation Network, which allows for exchanges of intelligence and requests for assistance on food fraud issues between EU member states. As a result, it said the FSA has put in place alternative mechanisms for identifying and escalating risks, and for exchanging information.