25th of January 2007 |  26th of January 2007

25th of January 2007

09.00 Coffee/tea, reception

09.30 Introduction

André Kleinmeulman (Chief Executive Officer, Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (FCPSA), the Netherlands )

David Statham – ( Food Standards Agency , United Kingdom )

10.00 Transparency as a Public Policy Principle in the Netherlands

A contribution from the perspective of policymakers:
1) government and transparency, worldwide and in the EU,
2) principles of Dutch government policy on transparency,
3)how is transparency being applied in the field of food quality?

Hanneke Heukers (director Legal Department of Ministry of Agriculture, Nature Management and Food Quality, the Netherlands )

10.30 Judicial aspects

Highlighted are questions as: Which rights do consumers and businesses have? Is there equality before the law: do all companies have to be inspected?

Bernd van der Meulen (professor of Law and Governance - Wageningen University, the Netherlands )

11.00 Forum

11.30 Coffee/tea break

12.00 Transparency of Enforcement Results: A Theoretical and Empirical Exploration of Effects

Enforcement agencies increasingly publicize the results of their inspections on the Internet. This information is supposed to support consumer choice but the underlying question is: does transparency stimulate compliance? In this presentation a theoretical and empirical overview of forms of transparency in different enforcement domains (food safety, environmental inspections, work safety) will be presented.

Albert Meijer (Utrecht School for Organization Theory and Science of Public Administration, the Netherlands)

12.45 Lunch

14.00 Experiences with transparency; the following aspects are presented and discussed by colleague member states that have experience with the subject:

Consequences for operating procedures: possibility of claims, conditions for frequency of inspection and sampling, what has to be guaranteed, how can it be assured that there will be an equal assessment by different inspectors for similar standard businesses in different areas, is there a possible role for accreditation, how to present data, is the enforcement agency “spotlighted” and what are the consequences?

The contributions mentioned above are combined in parallel-sessions.

Parallel session I:

Hilde Hamnes – Norwegian Food Safety Authority

Transparency as a means of enforcement on a principal level – starting up a smiley-project – making risk assessment public.

Knud Arne Nielsen – Danish Veterinary and Food Administration

Experiences with the Danish Smiley scheme

Pascal Houbaert - Belgian Federal Food Safety Agency

Transparency of self-control systems. Comparative polling of consumers with regard to perception and acceptance.

Dorothy Guina Dornan – Irish Food Safety Authority

Experiences with transparency

 

Parallel session II

David Statham – Food Standards Agency , United Kingdom

Overview of the national situation regarding Scores on the Doors and general experiences with transparency. The project Scores on the Doors is similar to the Danish Smiley scheme and is introduced across the whole of London (33 inspection authorities).

Rick Mason - London Borough of Barnet - (‘Scores on Doors’)

London Food Hygiene Information Publishing Scheme

Setting up the partnership consortium, working with a range of local authorities, business and consumers to design a scheme that addresses the stakeholder needs.

Niek Olieman – Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority

It’s a long way to …..transparency: points of interest, problems, pitfalls and possibilities.

Duration of each contribution: 20 minutes

Discussion as a result of the contribution: 10 minutes

16.00 Break with snack

16.30 Closing

17.00 Guided tour through The Hague followed by dinner at the Panorama Mesdag

Back to top