AIMS launches legal challenge against FSA charges
12th March 2025
The Association of Independent Meat Suppliers (AIMS) has commenced a legal action challenging the charges that the Food Standards Agency (FSA) is levying on the meat industry.
Peter Hewson, veterinary director at AIMS, explained that there are two reasons behind this move, managed by Roythornes Solicitors: “Firstly, the FSA’s insistence on focusing any discussion on the meat charges ‘subsidy; rather than looking for the causes of the excessively high charges.
“And, secondly, the scale of the increase in charges to be introduced from April 2025, which will see them rise by 11% for the industry as a whole and charges for medium sized abattoirs increase by 25%.”
Counsel has advised that three issues should be included in the challenge.
The first is that FSA has included costs in its calculation of the new hourly rates of £65.90 for an official veterinarian (OV) and £43.20 for a meat hygiene inspector (MHI) that cannot lawfully be included.
FSA called to ‘relook’ at its calculations
The AIMS team said that it is impossible to ascertain what elements of the charges are “costs connected” with official controls, rather than the chargeable costs of exercising the official controls themselves, which is non-compliant with the requirement for a high level of transparency.
What is more, they said that charges for enforcement activity go beyond the recovery of expenses that the regulations provide for.
“Our letter asks that the FSA to strip out all costs from its hourly rates that cannot be lawfully charged, and we urge them to relook at their calculations,” Mr Hewson concluded.
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