View report page

7
courts of Quarter Sessions had become irrelevant in view of the
fact that the service in question was now rightly treated as a
public health service rather than as a police matter. The Committee
expressed the opinion that the main factors determining
whether a local authority should be the food and drug authority
were the extent to which the routine work of food inspection and
sampling in the area would represent something more than
occasional duties for the officers engaged in the work; and the
standard which the authority had achieved in its public health
arrangements. The first of these factors is mainly determined by
the size of the population of the area, and in judging the second
it is relevant to consider whether the authority employs, on the
one hand, a medical officer of health who is engaged exclusively
in their work or exclusively in the work of public authorities, or,
on the other hand, one who has a part-time private practice.
Having regard to these considerations the Committee agreed to
compromise by recommending that the functions be entrusted to
county councils, county borough councils, and the councils of urban
areas (whether borough or urban districts) having a population,
according to the last published census, of not less than 40,000, and
empowering the Minister by Order to confer them on the council
of any other urban area with a population of not less than 20,000.
Clause 64 of the Bill gave effect to this recommendation. In its
passage through the House, however, it was modified, so that
Clause 64 of the Act is the corresponding clause of the Bill with
the addition of the proviso that if a county council satisfy the
Minister that the area or areas in respect of which they would be
the food and drugs authority would be rendered inconvenient in
size, shape, or situation for the efficient performance of their duties
as the food and drugs authority, the Minister may direct that the
county council shall be the food and drugs authority as respects
the district or districts of any one or more of the local authorities
who, but for such a direction, would be food and drugs authorities
under this Act, but were not such authorities under the law in
force immediately before the commencement thereof. The Middlesex
County Council took advantage of this clause and made
representations to the Ministry that the County Council should
retain their existing powers as the food and drugs authority, this
in spite of the fact that the work is in charge not of the public
health but of the public control department. Although, in common
with that of some other local authorities, this Council felt
that the sampling in this area was not done to the extent it would
have been had it been the duty of the local authority, and that
the cost per sample taken was considered to be inordinately high,
so that they felt that they could provide a better service more
economically, the Ministry supported the application of the County
Council.
Because it was feared that the Order of the Food Controller