Food Business and Food Safety
Scores on the Doors
Scores on the Doors is a pilot scheme supported by the Food Standards Agency to show how well food businesses are complying with food hygiene law.
The scheme allows you to view the latest hygiene rating of a restaurant or take out following a food hygiene inspection carried out by environmental health practitioners. The score will be in the form of a star rating.
Star ratings
The lower the star rating, the poorer the hygiene standard found at the time of the inspection, therefore:
5 stars
Very high standards of food safety management. Fully compliant with food safety legislation.
4 stars
Good food safety management. High standard of compliance with food safety legislation.
3 stars
Good level of legal compliance. Some more effort might be required.
2 stars
Broadly compliant with food safety legislation. More effort required to meet all legal requirements.
1 star
Poor level of compliance with food safety legislation - much more effort required.
No stars
A general failure to comply with legal requirements. Little or no appreciation of food safety. Major effort required.
The star-rating scheme is a London-wide project, which is supported by the Food Standards Agency, and is one of many pilot projects. The Food Standards Agency will assess how well the different pilot projects work, to decide how to move forward. To find out more on business ratings go to the Scores on the Doors website, and the star rating of businesses you are interested in go to the Your London website.
The purpose of the pilot scheme is to give the Agency the evidence it needs for future recommendations for one preferred scheme nationwide. These pilots should also help decide if the final scheme should be voluntary, or whether legislation is needed to implement Scores on the Doors.
A key reason this 'scores on the doors' scheme is being piloted is that food businesses must aim to maintain standards at all times, not simply respond to failures highlighted following an inspection, only for standards to drop again afterwards.
For more information about the purpose of these pilot schemes, and how they were developed, see the Food Standards Agency Board meeting paper (
PDF) from 21 September 2006.
If a business feels that standards have improved since the inspection they will have the right to have their comments posted on the council's website as long as they are accurate in the officer's opinion. Businesses should request a right to reply form from their local authority. Comments will be vetted by the local authority before being published on the website.
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