General Forum

Colleagues

If your service is responsible for Food Standards enforcement in England or Northern Ireland, you’ll possibly be aware of some updates regarding the implementation of the new Food Standards Delivery Model (FSDM) that have been released lately.   These have followed the publication of the revised Food Law Code of Practice in June 2023, which is due to be rolled out during 24/25.

Confirming what was said during their presentation at the APP & Cx Community’s in-person event in November 2023, the Food Standards Agency released an update on 16th November indicating that they would be working with Civica to facilitate data conversion for APP and Cx users to enable them to adopt the new FSDM.

Civica subsequently released an update on 1st December 2023, confirming this arrangement, indicating the likely methodology for data conversion which was to involve Civica and the FSA jointly.

Note: the FSA uses the Smarter Communications platform for issuing guidance and other material to Local Authorities, https://smartercommunications.food.gov.uk/   Your Authority should have a secure login to this platform using a .gov address and you will find the various documents regarding the FSDM on that platform.

Note: Civica publishes updates, guidance and other material via their UserHub service https://www.civica.com/en/userhub-dashboard/ and you will find the various items there regarding the FSDM implementation. We strongly recommend you register for a login with UserHub if you haven’t already done so, regardless of whether you have an interest in the FSDM topic as it is a vital channel for Civica to communicate with its customers.

The position regarding the FSDM implementation appears to have shifted recently with fresh communications from the FSA on 8th February 2024 and from Civica on 19th March 2024.

We recommend that you access all the documents from both FSA and Civica regarding this issue to make sure you are up to date with the evolving situation.

If you have queries about the FSDM itself, the FSA has a dedicated mailbox at FSDMenquiries@food.gov.uk and you can also contact Civica through your normal support channels.

We are in contact with both organisations to try and obtain further clarification of the implications for APP and Cx users and will update you when we can.