Why is the Food Hygiene Ratings schemes data provided in two ways?
A16: The ‘Food Hygiene Ratings’ scheme currently displays the data in a series of lists and also on the ‘My Elmbridge’ online maps facility. Initially, the Council published the information relating to 5 and 4 star food businesses on the ‘My Elmbridge’ online maps facility in July 2008, with a view to encouraging and offering support to those businesses achieving a lower star rating before publishing these later in the year. However, a subsequent upgrade of the ‘My Elmbridge’ facility proved incompatible with the ‘Food Hygiene Ratings’ scheme and led to a number of technical difficulties. As an interim measure, the Council published the star ratings in a series of lists to make the information accessible to the public, whilst these problems were being addressed. However, as both the list and map based systems are now proving equally popular with users, we have decided to maintain both methods of publishing.
