Food Inspection Branch - Service Standards

Our Mandate

• To safeguard Ontario's food supply through the delivery of an innovative, world-class food inspection system.

Our Services

• The Food Inspection Branch's comprehensive science-based food safety programs include: advisory and education services, inspection and audit, veterinary and technical support, laboratory testing, monitoring, and research. The Branch fosters compliance with legislated standards for meat and other livestock products, dairy, fruit, vegetables and other foods of plant origin produced and processed in Ontario. The Branch works with our government and industry food safety partners to establish food safety standards and provide a strong and seamless food safety and inspection framework from farm to fork in Ontario.

Our Service Principles

When we provide a service to you, we are guided by three key principles which help us to meet or exceed your expectations.

• We are accountable to you and to the people of Ontario. Programs and services are delivered according to stated objectives in a consistent manner. We respect your right to privacy and treat information with confidentiality.
• We are responsive to your needs. We provide accurate, high quality advice, guidance and information in a timely manner. Information is clear, up-to-date and easily accessible. We are transparent in our program guidelines and decision making processes.
• We are professional in our interactions with you. Our programs are delivered by knowledgeable and competent staff. You are treated with respect and courtesy.
  

Our Service Standards

Subject to operational exigencies, in the ordinary course of business.*

• Further Processing inspections will be performed in accordance with the risk based inspection plan. Our service commitment is that we will track our progress in 2011/2012 and use this information to improve our program performance and establish meaningful service standard targets for 2012/2013.
• Corrective actions with due dates set during the Corrective Action Plan meeting with our clients are a top priority for our program. Our service commitment is that 90 per cent of critical high and significant high action items combined will be completed on time or compliance action will be initiated on or before the prescribed date.
• Program staff are committed to working with operators towards completion of license renewal packages. Through these efforts, our service commitment is to have licences for all packages that are submitted complete and on time, which are approved by the director, issued on or before April 1 each year. Service commitment is 95 per cent achievement of this objective.
• The structure for meat plant audit reporting has changed to a more risk based approach that focuses on deficiencies, corrective actions and timelines for plants with a conditional pass or fail audit status. Data will be collected during 2011/2012 to more clearly define this service standard and to establish targets for the 2012/2013 audit year.
• Dairy Food Safety Program will test 95 per cent of goat milk producers for the monthly regulatory tests.
• An over all satisfaction rate of 80 per cent will be achieved at all training sessions for external clients.
• Non-compliance reporting protocol will be followed 85 per cent of the time.
• The FSDSS Help Desk phone will be answered 80 per cent of the time in person and calls will be returned in 30 minutes or less 80 per cent of the time.
• Annual Survey of Primary Clients - Standardized survey to determine: whether advice was delivered in a timely manner; did advice meet program needs at that time?

*While the Food Inspection Branch fully intends to adopt and meet the service standards set out above, it does not guarantee the same.

Report Back (2010 - 2011)

Program Name: Food Inspection Branch, Foods of Plant Origin

Comments: Foods of Plant Origin (FPO) was committed to meeting two service standards in the 2010-2011 fiscal year. Both standards were exceeded. FPO was committed to following non-compliance protocols 85 per cent of the time. This standard was exceeded and protocols were followed 93 per cent of the time. FPO also committed to having an overall participant satisfaction rate of 80 per cent for all external training sessions. At the end of each training session, participants were asked to rank their satisfaction with the session on a scale of 1-5. A score of 1 meant they were unsatisfied and 5 meant they were very satisfied. In the 2010-2011 fiscal year, 91 per cent of all participants were either satisfied (4) or very satisfied (5) with the training they received.

Non-compliance notification protocols will be updated and significantly modified in the 2011-2012 fiscal year. The service standards will remain the same.

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Program Name: Food Inspection Branch, Dairy Food Safety Program

Comments: The Dairy Food Safety Program was committed to meeting its service standard in the 2010-2011 fiscal year. The Program's target was to test 98 per cent of goat milk producers for the monthly regulatory tests. This service standard was not met, but the Program was very close to its target (97.37 per cent). During this fiscal year, the number of on-farm processors increased steadily. The Program did not have any further resources to dedicate to this sampling program. Therefore, the Program will be reducing its testing target to 95 per cent for 2011-12 fiscal year.

The graph below shows a marked reduction in the number of samples tested in the month of December. This was due to a number of samples arriving at the laboratory unsuitable for regulatory testing which was out of the control of the Program. The laboratory's reduced hours during the holiday season meant that these samples could not be resubmitted.

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Program Name: Food Inspection Branch, Food Safety Science Unit

Comments: The Food Safety Science Unit (FSSU) was committed to reporting on two service standards in the 2010-11 fiscal year. These service standards required the FSSU to conduct an annual survey of primary clients as well as a semi-annual self assessment survey (to be completed by unit staff).

The annual survey of primary clients was composed of five questions designed to capture information from the primary clients that we serve (primarily FIB program areas, but also other areas of the Ministry). The first four questions were qualitative and designed to acquire feedback on how clients viewed the advice/services provided by FSSU. This included what clients found most effective, what the impacts of the advice/services provided were, what could be improved, and what other types of services or information would clients like to see FSSU provide. The fifth question in the survey captured on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being strongly disagree, 5 being strongly agree) how clients felt about the quality, timeliness, professionalism, etc. of the advice/services provided by FSSU staff. FSSU's target score in question five of the survey was a score of 4 out of 5. This target was exceeded in 2010-11, and will remain for 2011-12.

The self-assessment survey was designed with the intent of capturing staff initiatives, detailing objectives, outcomes and qualitative descriptions of how well those outcomes achieved the stated objectives. In late 2010, a decision was made by the FSSU to discontinue the self-assessment survey. This decision was made due to issues encountered with trying to summarize qualitative responses from unit staff across a very diverse activity set. This survey was not an effective measure for a service standard since it was not designed to report a quantitative measure.

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Program Name: Food Inspection Branch, Meat Inspection and Veterinary Inspection and Audit Programs

Comments: This is the first report back on program specific service standards for the Meat Inspection and Veterinary Inspection and Audit Programs. We are pleased to be able to report back on all but one of our defined standards, with the final standard still in development at this time. We expect all of our standards to continue on forward into the coming year. In this current year we will be adding targets for new measures and reviewing targets for already defined measures.

1. Further processing inspections will be performed in accordance with the risk based inspection plan. Our service commitment is that we will track our progress in 2010/2011 and use this information to improve our program performance and establish meaningful service standard targets for 2011/2012.
   
   A risk based framework was used to establish five inspection risk categories that determine the frequency of inspection. Risk level was assessed for each plant during the 2010/2011 license renewal process. Baseline information will be tracked starting in April 2011. Performance targets will be established in 2012/2013.
   
   
2. Corrective actions with due dates set during the Corrective Action Plan meeting with our clients will be met by the prescribed date OR progressive compliance action will be initiated on or before the prescribed date to achieve compliance. Our service commitment is that we will track our progress in 2010/2011 and use this information to improve our program performance and establish meaningful service standard targets for 2011/2012.
   
   In 2010/2011 the program focused on the on-time correction of Critical and Significant high-risk deficiencies identified in the annual food safety audit. If items were not completed on time, but compliance action was initiated, these items were considered compliant. All audit items were also tracked for overall completion. Critical and Significant audit identified deficiencies were completed or compliance action was initiated by the due date 74.6 per cent of the time. Overall, 89.3 per cent of all audit identified deficiencies were completed or compliance action was initiated. This data collected during 2010/2011 represents our baseline. Targets will be established for 2011/2012.
   
   
3. Program staff are committed to working with operators towards completion of license renewal packages. Through these efforts, our service commitment is to have 80 per cent of all re-licensing packages fully completed and accurate by January 31 each year. Licenses for all packages that are submitted complete and on time, which are approved by the Director, will be issued on or before April 1 each year. Our service commitment is 95 per cent achievement for issuing of licenses for all renewals starting with the 2011/2012 renewal process.
   
   For the 2010/2011 renewal year, 90.2 per cent of all license renewal packages were accurate and complete by January 31, 2011. In addition, 98.2 per cent of licenses submitted complete and on time were issued by April 1, 2011.
   
   
4. Inspection staff will meet with plant operators to discuss deficiencies, corrective actions and timelines for all items identified by the food safety audit. Our service commitment is that these corrective action plan meetings will occur within the prescribed timelines 80 per cent of the time commencing with the 2010/2011 audit cycle.
   
   Inspection staff are committed to working with plant operators to ensure a full understanding of regulatory requirements. During 2010/2011 a risk-based approach changed the way audits were reported and resulted in mid year changes to corrective action plan meeting requirements. In 2011/2012 our focus will be on the timing of corrective action plan meetings for those plants having higher risk "conditional pass" and "fail" ratings. Data collected in 2010/1011 will be evaluated in order to determine performance commitments for the coming year.

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Program Name: Food Inspection Branch, Information Management Unit

Comments: The Information Management Unit (IMU) was committed to meeting two service standards in the 2010-2011 fiscal year. IMU committed to answering the Food Safety Decision Support System (FSDSS) help desk phone line 80 per cent of the time in person and for calls to be returned in 30 minutes or less 80 per cent of the time. These service standards were tracked using a survey completed by staff that had used the services of the FSDSS help desk.

Due to the roll out of new programs supported by the help desk, higher than anticipated call volumes were experienced. This increase in calls received resulted in neither of these standards being achieved.

To better service clients and to help meet or exceed these service standards, additional staff have been assigned to answer calls on the FSDSS help desk for 2011-2012.

Both targets will remain the same in 2011-2012.

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Feedback/Complaints

We want to provide the best service that we can and your feedback helps us to improve. If you have comments, questions or concerns about our service we encourage you to let us know. Please contact us by calling the Agricultural Information Contact Centre at 1-877-424-1300 or use the Feedback Form or send an e-mail to ag.info.omafra@ontario.ca