Overdue food hygiene inspections in Westminster rose more than fivefold in a year, to 646, after staff vacancies. Seventeen venues currently hold a zero rating.
Westminster owed its food businesses 646 overdue hygiene inspections at the start of April. A year earlier the figure was 117.
The numbers are in the council’s Food Safety Service Plan 2026/27, approved on 27 August by Cllr Caroline Sargent, the Cabinet Member for Enforcement. The decision took effect on 4 September. The council did not announce it.
The plan is candid about the cause. Inspections carried out fell from 2,942 in 2024/25 to 2,266 in 2025/26, and the report says the service “had a number of vacant posts in the team last year”.
Where the backlog actually sits
This matters less than the headline number suggests, and the plan explains why.
Westminster rates every food business from A to E for risk, and each category has its own legal inspection frequency:
| Category | Inspected every | Premises in Westminster |
|---|---|---|
| A | 6 months | 29 |
| B | 12 months | 291 |
| C | 18 months | 1,411 |
| D | 2 years | 2,255 |
| E | 3 years | 919 |
| N (newly opened) | assessed on opening | 116 |
The council completed every scheduled category A, B and C inspection last year, and every new premises inspection, apart from five where officers could not get access. All five have since been inspected.
The backlog is entirely in the lower-risk categories. At the end of the year 450 category D and 191 category E inspections were outstanding. So the premises going longest without a visit are the ones the code of practice already treats as least risky, not the high-risk kitchens.
It is also not the worst it has been. The plan gives three years of figures:
- April 2024: 1,043 inspections outstanding
- April 2025: 117
- April 2026: 646
Westminster has about 5,021 registered food businesses, and 3,336 of them are due an inspection between April 2026 and March 2027.
What the ratings look like today
A separate check of the Food Standards Agency’s own register, made on 22 September, lists 5,748 establishments in Westminster. The FSA count is higher than the council’s because it includes school and hospital kitchens, care premises and other establishments alongside restaurants and shops.
Of the 5,295 premises with a published rating, 3,727 hold the top score of five, just over 70%. At the bottom, 83 premises are rated one and 17 are rated zero, meaning urgent improvement is necessary.
The rest of the register is accounted for by 289 exempt premises, 156 awaiting a first inspection and 8 awaiting publication of a result. So 164 establishments in Westminster currently carry no rating at all.
A rating reflects the day an officer visited. Under the frequencies above, a category D cafe can be carrying a score that is nearly two years old, and a category E premises nearly three.
What the enforcement team did last year
The plan also sets out the year’s enforcement, which is heavier than the backlog figure implies:
- 11 food hygiene prosecutions concluded successfully
- 1 court order prohibiting an individual from running a food business
- 10 hygiene emergency prohibition notices, down from 38 the year before
- 46 food hygiene improvement notices
- 2 voluntary closure agreements and 3 simple cautions
- 643 new food businesses registered and inspected
- 1,209 complaints and service requests completed
- 86 food samples analysed for allergens, additives, enzymes and speciation
The council puts the fall in emergency prohibition notices down to the previous year’s completed inspection round leaving fewer premises in an imminently dangerous state.
The candy shop work
The plan’s biggest single enforcement result came from its grey market goods project, aimed at shops selling imported sweets and snacks not intended for the UK market.
Officers engaged with 30 businesses and took enforcement action at 14. In all, 4,791 non-compliant food products were removed from sale, through nine formal seizures and 23 voluntary surrenders. Westminster Magistrates’ Court granted nine condemnation orders, covering unauthorised novel foods including CBD products, food not produced to hygiene requirements, products with no English-language labelling and therefore no allergen information, and foods with excessive or unauthorised additives. Five prosecution files were submitted.
The council says it shared its legal approach with the FSA and that the work fed into new national guidance. We reported a related trading standards seizure in Victoria in August: 200 fake squishy toys taken from a candy store.
How the council plans to catch up
Three environmental health officers have been recruited into existing vacancies, one joining in June and a second in July. A new permanent environmental health officer post has been approved, with the officer due to start in October 2026. A reactive officer is also being recruited to handle complaints and lead on self-assessment of category E premises, freeing others for the category D backlog.
The council’s stated aim for 2026/27 is to stop the backlog growing, and to “be in a strong position to begin reducing” it by the end of the financial year. That is a target to hold it to next August, when the 2027/28 plan is written.
What it means for you
Check the date, not just the score. Every rating is published on the FSA’s ratings site, and the entry shows when the inspection took place. A five awarded last month and a five awarded in 2023 look identical on the door sticker.
No rating at all is not a bad sign. Westminster registers around 80 new food businesses a month and aims to inspect each within 28 days of opening, so a new place may simply be waiting its turn.
If something is wrong, report it. The food team takes service requests through the council’s Report It form and at foodsafety@westminster.gov.uk. Its published targets are to respond to any FSA food alert or major food poisoning incident within 24 hours, and to all other requests within five working days. Westminster handles around 1,100 food service requests a year, which the plan says is one of the highest figures for any local authority in the country.
More from the council: Westminster licensing hours and planning news.
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