How environmental health regulate

The Regulators' Code provides a framework for how regulators should engage with those they regulate. 

We aim to provide its regulated customers with an efficient and professional service to meet the requirements of the Regulators' Code.

Environmental Health as a regulator

We are responsible for carrying out the regulations and standards set by government for a wide range of business sectors and activities including: 

• Food Safety
• Health and Safety
• Environmental Protection
• Licensing and registration
• Housing Standards

Our Service Delivery Plan sets down our priorities for the year. It also highlights our aims and performance measures for our main regulatory areas.

As part of our wider commitment to transparency, our plan shows how we have addressed important issues facing environmental health during the year and show progress in meeting our corporate plan objectives.

How we work with businesses

We carry out our activities in a way that supports our regulated customers. Our corporate and departmental enforcement guides set out our approach to regulation in the context of current and future challenges. It indicates the ways in which we will operate as a fair and proportionate regulator that works to protect people and the environment, supporting business and sustainable economic growth while targeting illegal operators.

We look at the financial impact on businesses when we are considering enforcement action. Our approach to engaging with businesses helps us to ensure decision making is accountable and transparent.

Help to get it right

We provide advice that supports compliance that can be relied on. We are always improving the way our advice and guidance is written, making it easier for businesses to find what they need.

Our Service standards sets out what you can expect from us.

Inspections, interventions and other compliance checks

Across the range of our activity, we use different ways to assess how well our customers are complying with the law. These include:

• targeted interventions, inspections and audits
• the follow up and investigation of incidents, complaints and service requests
• the issuing of registrations and licences and their assessment of compliance

We adopt a risk-based approach to all our activities. This means that we apply more regulatory scrutiny to those whose activities pose a greater risk to the public than less risky activities. Businesses who perform well will see less of us unless they need us.

We will report the outcome of our compliance activities to operators and give them feedback on how they are performing. Where we find non-compliance with any legal requirements, we will risk rate the premises accordingly.

Response to non-compliance

The Departments response to non-compliance is contained within our own enforcement policy.
Underlying our commitment to firm but fair regulation is the principle of proportionality in securing compliance and targeting of enforcement action.

Have your say

We are always willing to discuss our regulatory decisions and actions.

We manage complaints about any area of our work or challenges to our regulatory actions through our Quality System procedures on an informal level. If you are not satisfied with our response you can then use other appeals processes available to you. As a final resort you can use formal Compliments and complaints process.

We value your feedback to help us make sure our services meet your needs. We use customer satisfaction surveys from time to time but welcome feedback at any time.

To provide feedback about how we regulate contact us at info@preston.gov.uk