Primary Authority
The SCA is working with Cornwall Council in a Primary Authority partnership to agree advice on food hygiene and labelling regulations which are backed by law. If you join the scheme and follow the advice, you will know that you are working within the law. This gives you peace of mind and more time to focus on your business.
Primary Authority is a Government-backed initiative and the SCA was one of the first trade associations to take advantage of it. The SCA scheme is voluntary and members who wish to participate must opt-in.
1. How do I join/opt in?
For SCA members wishing to join/opt in to our Primary Authority scheme, the process is fairly simple:
Fill out the contact form here.
Your enquiry will be processed, and you will be emailed final confirmation of sign up.
2. What is Primary Authority?
Primary Authority enables a business to form a legally-recognised partnership with one local authority, which is called its ‘Primary Authority’. The Primary Authority can provide the business with robust and reliable regulatory advice which other local authorities take into account in their dealings with the business. In this way, Primary Authority promotes consistency and fairness in the way that local councils enforce regulations.
The eligibility criteria for Primary Authority changed with effect from October 2013, to allow a business to join the scheme if it is part of a group of businesses following the same regulatory advice, which has been provided to them, for example, by a trade association such as the SCA. In our scheme, the SCA acts as the co-ordinator for participating members, through which all queries will be filtered.
3. What can Primary Authority do for my business?
Primary Authority allows the SCA to work closely with Cornwall Council to ensure that it understands our sector and is able to give sensible, useful and reliable advice on what your business needs to do to comply with the law. Cornwall Council has become an expert on specialist cheesemaking and can help inspectors from other local authorities to better understand your business and the challenges you face.
As long as you are following the advice that the SCA has agreed with Cornwall Council, other local authorities can't ask you to do something different. If another local authority has a question about the advice, or a different interpretation of the law, ask them to contact the SCA in the first instance and we will liaise with Cornwall Council to resolve the matter. This means that you can get on with running your business – protected from the consequences of inconsistent local interpretation of regulations.
4. What is assured advice and guidance?
Cornwall Council and the SCA Technical Committee have produced an assured advice and guidance document based on the SCA Code of Best Practice. This is used by local authorities for inspection purposes. In the longer term, we will consider developing an inspection plan for specialist cheesemakers which will help cheesemakers further.
5. How much does it cost?
It is free for SCA members to join the PA scheme but you do need to opt-in (See item 1).
A Primary Authority is entitled to recover its costs for developing and providing advice, and for other work that it does to support partnerships under the scheme. The SCA aims to keep this to a minimum via careful filtering of queries by the SCA office first. We believe that many of the issues raised can be resolved by the SCA, with only brief discussions with Cornwall Council (for which they would not charge).
If an unforeseen situation arises relating to a particular cheesemaker, for which guidance and advice does not exist and costs may escalate, we will ask the cheesemaker concerned whether they would be prepared to pay in order to make the necessary progress.
Cornwall Council has agreed that it will not undertake any work for which it will charge unless it has been explicitly agreed with the SCA.
6. What areas does the Primary Authority partnership cover?
The Primary Authority partnership between the SCA and Cornwall Council covers ‘food safety and hygiene’ and ‘food standards’.
7. Where does Primary Authority extend?
The SCA Primary Authority Scheme covers businesses (cheesemakers, retailers and wholesalers) in England.
Any members who are not based in England are still encouraged to sign-up. Although they may not be able to rely on Primary Authority Advice in the same way as a business based in England, if they can demonstrate to their local authority that they are a member of a co-ordinated partnership, such as the SCA scheme, and are following guidance and advice provided under that partnership, as long as the legislation is identical in relation to the relevant provisions, this should be capable of reassuring their local authority that they are operating safely and in compliance with the legislation.
8. Do I have to join the Primary Authority?
There is no legal requirement for SCA members to join our Primary Authority scheme – it is a voluntary scheme and can only be accessed by opting-in via the application form on the SCA website.