Friday January 30th 2026
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Marie Sharp
One in five food premises in Midlothian have not been rated with hundreds of missed inspections while the numbers failing to meet standards are on the increase.
A national shortage in food inspectors has left Midlothian Council with only a third of the estimated staff required to meet the current demand, an audit of its food law enforcement has found.
However the local authority responded by calling for food premises to be licensed in the future to bring in more funds to support inspections and public safety.
The audit recognised the innovative work the local authority has been doing to try and address the shortfall with two new trainee roles, an apprenticeship and the use of contractors, but it said they currently had less than half the number of staff that it was estimated was needed to tackle the current demand.
Food Standards Scotland said the audit had revealed only 76% of Midlothian food businesses inspected achieved a pass rating between April 2024 and March 2025 – down 10 per cent from 2023-24.
And it found 215 of the 993 registered food premises in the county had no rating – a certificate awarded once an inspection has been carried out while the number of ‘missed’ inspections doubled over two years from 143 to 284 last year due to a staffing shortfall.
It said: “The number of missed inspections and unrated premises is a cause for concern, but it is acknowledged that good and innovative progress is being made in addressing the staffing shortfall.”
The audit report said that in response Midlothian Council had said the national shortage had led them to ;grow their own’ and added that the council supported a scheme to introduce licences for food premises which would bring in funding for future inspections.
They said: “The national shortage of Environmental Health Officers and/or trained Food Safety Officers coupled with the extremely limited options to achieve the necessary qualifications and fully funded training opportunities nationally has negatively impacted the local authority. Midlothian Council have taken considerable efforts to address this locally by ‘growing our own’.
“Midlothian Council supports the introduction of a licensing scheme to ensure compliance with standard conditions prior to a food business starting operations, with retrospective licensing to be applied to all existing
establishments.
“This would provide a valuable (ring-fenced) income stream commensurate with the size of the authority to the resource required for interventions; improve initial compliance to protect public health; and potentially reduce enforcement action taken on business through pre-requisite conditions.”
The report will be discussed at a meeting of the council’s policy and performance committee next week.
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