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Food Standards Agency

Thursday 24 July 2008

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Complaints

Wednesday 7 May 2008

Complaints and compliments about the Food Standards Agency.

Reporting food-related complaints

This webpage provides advice on how you can make a complaint about the FSA, our people or our services.

If you are not complaining specifically about the FSA but want to report an issue such as poor hygiene practice in a food outlet or mislabelling, you should not use this complaints procedure. You should instead get the relevant contact details for officials responsible for food standards enforcement in the area where you live from the How to Complain section.

Receiving complaints and compliments is important to the Food Standards Agency, as they give us a valuable insight into how we are doing, helping us know what we’re getting right and what we can improve on.

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Raising a concern or making a complaint

Even the best organisations will sometimes get things wrong. Where this happens, we encourage you to let us know. We will try to resolve any problem quickly, and explain what we have done and why.

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What is a complaint?

You should let us know if:

If you are dissatisfied with any decision or policy that the Food Standards Agency has made, please contact us so we can explain how that decision or policy was reached. If, after receiving our explanation, you believe you have grounds for a complaint, you should follow our complaints procedure.

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Our complaints procedure

Most concerns or complaints are best and most quickly resolved by talking to the person or team directly concerned. If you need to find the person that deals with a particular subject area, please use our A-Z contact list at the Contact Us section .

If your concerns cannot be resolved informally with the person or team concerned, you can make a formal complaint, contacting the Complaints Co-ordinator:

FSA Complaints Co-ordinator

Philip Clarke
Regulation, International and Openness Division
Room 115B Aviation House
125 Kingsway
London WC2B 6NH

Tel: 020 7276 8337
Email: philip.clarke@foodstandards.gsi.gov.uk

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Our service standards

If you write to us with a complaint, we will acknowledge your letter within two working days of receiving it. We will write to you with a full reply within 20 working days of receiving your complaint or, if this is not possible, we will explain why and say when you will get a full reply.

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If you're still unhappy

If you are not satisfied with the outcome of our investigation of your complaint, you can write to us to ask for a further review of your complaint. This review will be adjudicated by a senior person, normally the Chief Executive, who will work to the same service standards above.

If you are still dissatisfied after the conclusion of our complaints procedure, you can ask for your complaint and its handling to be investigated by the Ombudsman. To do this, you must write to a Member of Parliament (this does not have to be your local MP) asking that they refer your complaint to the Ombudsman (the telephone number for the House of Commons Information Office, where you can get information on contacting your MP, is 020 7219 4272). Usually, before you complain to him, the Ombudsman expects you to have first put your complaint to the FSA through our complaints procedure. If you are in any doubt about whether your case is suitable for referral to the Ombudsman, contact the Ombudsman's helpline on 0845 015 4033 for guidance.

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Compliments and other comments

We are also very pleased to receive compliments about the Food Standards Agency or any of our staff, as they highlight areas of good practice and acknowledge the hard work of our staff.

You may also wish to make a comment about the Food Standards Agency or our staff that isn't a complaint. You may, for instance, have an idea of how we can improve our service in a particular area. Such comments are always welcome and can be very helpful.

Please forward any compliments or other comments to the Complaints Co-ordinator, using the contact details above. We will always acknowledge your comments.

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Meat Hygiene Service-related complaints

The Meat Hygiene Service has its own robust procedures in place to deal with customer complaints. These include:

For further details, contact the Meat Hygiene Service on 01904 455 558.

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Complaints received by the FSA

Related links

Complaints received and internal whistleblowing in 2005/2006

Download pdf  (pdf 34KB) Complaints received by the Food Standards Agency in 2001/2002 Complaints received by the Food Standards Agency in 2002/2003 Complaints received by the Food Standards Agency in 2003/2004 Complaints received by the Food Standards Agency in 2004/2005

Download pdf  (pdf 14KB)

See also

Cwynion a dderbyniwyd gan yr asiantaeth yn 2001 - 2002 Welsh language

Download pdf  (pdf 74KB) Cwynion a dderbyniwyd gan yr asiantaeth yn 2002 - 2003

Download pdf  (pdf 12KB) Cwynion a dderbyniwyd gan yr asiantaeth yn 2003 - 2004

Download pdf  (pdf 14KB) Cwynion a dderbyniwyd gan yr asiantaeth yn 2004 - 2005

Download pdf  (pdf 62KB) Cwynion a dderbyniwyd, a chwythu'r chwiban yn fewnol yn 2005 - 2006

Download pdf  (pdf 80KB) Meat Hygiene Service (External) Get Adobe Acrobat reader You may need the free Acrobat Reader to view a pdf

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