The Fish Health Inspectorate and You: Our code of practice and customer charter

The Fish Health Inspectorate – Who are we?

The Fish Health Inspectorate (FHI) is a small specialist team based in the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas). Cefas is an executive agency of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

We are responsible, on behalf of Defra in England and the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) in Wales, for fish and shellfish health matters. Our main aim is to prevent the introduction and spread of serious fish and shellfish diseases in England and Wales. We achieve this through risk based surveillance, monitoring, import controls and responding to reported mortality problems.

Our approach to quality

The work of the Inspectorate varies in complexity and we aim to provide a service of the highest standard in all areas of our work. We are currently accredited to BS/EN/ISO/IEC 17025:2005 for the testing of fish samples for VHSV, IHNV, SVCV and BKD and are working towards extending our accredited areas of work to other diseases and to our inspection work.

What standards can you expect?

Contact with FHI staff:

Our staff will identify themselves by name in all correspondence, on the telephone and when they meet you. They will be courteous in their dealings with you and will adopt a professional approach at all times.

Responses to enquiries, correspondence and applications:

We seek to answer all telephone calls promptly. If the first person in the team you speak with is unable to deal with your enquiry either your call will be transferred to the right person or we will arrange for someone to call you back. We aim to respond within 24 hours to any messages left with a member of the team or on our answer-phones/ voicemails.

We aim to respond to all written correspondence including licence applications (whether received by post, fax or email) within 10 working days.

If a complete response will take longer, we will supply an interim reply explaining why and letting you know when you can expect a full reply.

Fish and shellfish farm registration:

Following receipt of your application we aim to inspect your site within 20 working days and following the visit inform you of the outcome in writing within a further 10 working days.

Where we are unable to schedule a visit within this timescale or one is not required we will contact you to discuss the delay and any implication this may have for you.

Requests for movement documents:

Where your trade with other EU Member States requires certification by the FHI we will respond in time for the movement to take place, provided 5 working days notice has been given.

Inspections:

Our team aim to arrive promptly for all pre-arranged appointments, if however this is not possible we will contact you to apologise, explain the delay and arrange a new appointment if appropriate. On arrival the inspector will state the purpose of their visit and will provide a verbal summary on conclusion, including what you can expect next.

Following a site visit where no sample has been taken, we will provide a summary report within 10 working days of the inspection.

Where a sample has been taken we will report any results identifying a notifiable disease verbally within 1 working day of the confirmatory test, confirming in writing within 5 working days. Where no notifiable disease is found we will write to you within 5 working days of the result being available.

Notifiable diseases:

The Inspectorate aim to respond immediately where notifiable diseases which are exotic to England and Wales are suspected. We aim to respond to other notifiable diseases within 2 working days.

Openness and accessibility

Requests for information held by the Inspectorate are dealt with on a case by case basis in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004.

Enforcement

The Inspectorate is responsible for investigating offences and enforcing fish health regulations. Our policy is to work with the industry to help and advise and to encourage voluntary compliance with the regulations. It also aims to prosecute persistent offenders or those committing serious offences. The inspectorate works closely with fish farming and angling representative bodies to encourage best practice in fish welfare. It also works with the Environment Agency, the police, HM Customs and Revenue and other agencies in the UK and abroad to prevent illegal imports of live fish entering the country. The inspectorate encourages the public to provide it with information relating to such matters.

We welcome your feedback

The Inspectorate welcome your views regarding all aspects of our work and its delivery. We seek customer feedback regularly and publish information on our Charter compliance annually via our website and the Cefas publications Shellfish News and Finfish News.

If you have a concern or complaint about the FHI, please contact the licensing team on 01305 206674 who will handle your complaint or arrange for it to be dealt with by a more appropriate senior member of the team. We will respond to your complaint within 10 working days explaining our findings and suggesting a resolution. Should this timescale not be possible we will discuss the delay with you and provide a revised deadline. If you feel the matter is still unresolved we will provide you with full details of who you should contact outside the Inspectorate to take the matter further.

For further information contact a member of our team

The Fish Health Inspectorate
Cefas Weymouth Laboratory
Barrack Road
The Nothe
Weymouth
Dorset DT4 8UB

Fish.Health.Inspectorate@cefas.co.uk

www.efishbusiness.co.uk

www.cefas.co.uk

Licensing Team 01305 206673/4/9
Complaints and Feedback 01305 206674
Field Team Co-ordinator 01305 206686

Enforcement Hotline 01305 206681
Team Fascimile 01305 206602
Weymouth Switchboard 01305 206600