What does it take to be a champion of environmental health? Nick Warburton talks to Audrey Lewis, cabinet member for Westminster Council, one of two beacon authorities for effective environmental health
What can be achieved when you have got cabinet member backing for environmental health? The answer lies with the authorities that have turned a failing service into a beacon award winner.
There's no place better to start than with Westminster Council. It is one of two local authorities (with Coventry) to have been awarded Beacon Status for effective environmental health, which reflects its excellence and innovation in all areas of the service (EHP, November 2004, pages 24-25).
Responsibility for environmental health at the authority lies with Audrey Lewis, cabinet member for community protection and licensing, an impassioned advocate of the profession who has long recognised its value to the community.
Though only a councillor for four years, Ms Lewis has overseen a transformation in environmental health services. She admits that she knew little about the subject when she took on the job and her first impressions were not positive. "The only thing I knew about environmental health was that a couple of years ago there had been a bit of a scandal because we had been found to be not picking up on our food inspections very well," she recalls. "There had been a problem and Westminster City Council had egg on its face."
Listen to staff
One of the first things she did was meet the team and find out why the inspection regime was failing. What she found changed her perception of environmental health.
"I discovered that there were all sorts of really enthusiastic people who enjoyed their jobs and really wanted to tell people about what they did but were frustrated because nobody wanted to listen," she says. But listen she did. Judging by the way she describes her relationship with EHPs, it is apparent that her support was key to the way the service was turned around.
As cabinet member for community protection and licensing, Ms Lewis is well placed to measure the impact of environmental health on improving the local environment. Within community protection, EHPs work across three streams, she explains. The first works with the CivicWatch, a council-wide project that primarily targets problem premises in the city by using intelligence information to tackle crime and disorder, violence and health and safety. The second stream supports the crime and disorder reduction partnership. The final stream carries out the regulatory duties of environmental health and trading standards.
EHPs are also prominent in the licensing department, which is responsible for overseeing the borough's huge night-time economy. Under the Licensing Act 2003, 3,000 licensed premises are now under the council's responsibility, with environmental health taking the lead.
Ms Lewis believes the new licensing powers offer an opportunity for the profession to raise its national profile. "They made an enormous difference because for the first time in recent years, environmental health is regularly being involved in what would be regarded as 'mainstream, sexy, high-profile council activity'," she argues.
Under her stewardship, environmental health has become the flag waver for the council's licensing policy. Working with the police, EHPs have reviewed all licensed premises in the city and studied risk rating and inspection regimes to isolate the premises where remedial work needs to be done. The approach has proved a success.
Innovation appears to lie at the heart of the council's success, as is what Ms Lewis calls Westminster's "lusting after excellence".
While she describes her relationship with environmental health as "very hands-off", she says the ethos is that senior management encourages performance.
"There is a very widespread feeling that if you do something it should be done to the very best of your ability," she says. "All the time, we're looking for innovation. It is second nature to look for it. There is a general culture that is, if you are going to do something, you might as well do it properly."
Ms Lewis also attributes a lot of the authority's success to the way in which Westminster has centralised all of the departments that have responsibility for caring for the community, be it the business community, residents or visitors.
She suspects that the way other authorities have organised their services may explain the lack of recognition for environmental health at cabinet level. She adds that many councillors, many of whom have full-time jobs, do not have time to find out what is going on in environmental health. And she is quick to dismiss the new local government arrangements, which she warns could see environmental health "relegated to a backwater somewhere".
Modest champion
"In the past you did have a committee which took responsibility for a broad range of people and you could identify an individual member of that committee to get close to particular parts of that operation and champion it," she says.
She believes that under the new arrangements, where a cabinet or executive member has a wider responsibility, asking them to spend a great deal of time on issues that do not appear to be causing problems is questionable. "I think it is a real disadvantage to statutory-based services because the budgets aren't up for grabs so there isn't this interest in defending areas to the same extent."
Ms Lewis is surprisingly modest. She firmly believes that it was a case of her arriving at the right time rather than having a formula for dealing with environmental health. And she laughs at the perception of her as a champion for the profession. "I cannot tell you that there is a secret formula for putting environmental health on the map," she says. "All I have done is to react to the work that is going on here."
She is adamant she cannot take sole credit. However, she does offer some advice which she says is vital for enthusing officers. "I think the simple thing is take some time out to talk to key individuals and junior staff and listen to what is worrying them and what turns them on," she explains. "I don't think that is a particular recipe for environmental health. I think that's probably how any local authority or business manager desirably operates."
