Annual Report the Norwegian Food Safety Authority
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ANNUAL REPORT 2015 – THE NORWEGIAN FOOD SAFETY AUTHORITY 0 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 The Director General's report ............................................................................................................... 3 2 Introduction to the organisation and key figures ................................................................................. 5 3 Activities and results for the year ......................................................................................................... 7 3.1 Overall assessment of results, goal achievement and resource use ............................................... 7 3.2 The NFSA shall work to ensure safe food and drinking water ......................................................... 9 3.2.1 Hygiene .................................................................................................................................. 13 3.2.2 Contaminants ........................................................................................................................ 15 3.2.3 Food supplements and food with added vitamins and minerals and 'other substances' ..... 18 3.2.4 Seafood .................................................................................................................................. 19 3.2.5 Drinking water ....................................................................................................................... 22 3.3 The NFSA is to promote healthy plants, fish and animals .............................................................. 24 3.3.1 Plant health............................................................................................................................ 26 3.3.2 Fish health and fish welfare ................................................................................................... 28 3.3.3 Animal health......................................................................................................................... 35 3.3.4 Feed for land animals and aquatic animals ........................................................................... 38 3.3.5 Animal by-products and derived products ............................................................................ 40 3.4 The NFSA is to promote animal welfare and respect for animals .................................................. 41 3.4.1 Land animal welfare .............................................................................................................. 43 3.5 The NFSA is to promote health, quality and consumer interests .................................................. 49 3.5.1 Genetically modified products in food, feed and seeds ........................................................ 52 3.5.2 Cosmetics ............................................................................................................................... 54 3.6 The NFSA is to work to ensure environmentally friendly production ............................................ 55 3.7 The NFSA's work in relation to value creation and market access ................................................ 57 3.8 The NFSA's work in 2015 ................................................................................................................ 59 3.8.1 Rationalisation, development and continuous improvement work ..................................... 59 3.8.2 Development of regulations and international work ............................................................ 61 3.8.3 Supervisory activities ............................................................................................................. 64 3.8.4 Contingency ........................................................................................................................... 67 3.8.5 Communication and guidance ............................................................................................... 69 3.8.6 Gathering knowledge and analysing status ........................................................................... 71 3.9 Resource use and productivity ....................................................................................................... 73 4 Management and control in the agency ............................................................................................. 77 4.1 Overall management and control in the agency ............................................................................ 77 4.2 The HR area .................................................................................................................................... 79 4.3 Digitalisation and ICT ...................................................................................................................... 82 1 5 Prospects ............................................................................................................................................. 84 6 Annual accounts .................................................................................................................................. 85 6.1 Management comments ................................................................................................................ 85 6.2 Note 1 Accounting principles ......................................................................................................... 88 6.3 Presentation of the appropriations reporting as of 31 December 2015 ....................................... 90 6.4 Presentation of the general ledger accounts reporting as of 31 December 2015 ......................... 94 APPENDIX 1: THE NFSA'S PRODUCTION INDICATORS ..................................................................... 98 APPENDIX 2: SPECIAL REPORTING ON RESOURCE USE ................................................................... 99 APPENDIX 3: STATISTICS ................................................................................................................... 101 2 1 THE DIRECTOR GENERAL'S REPORT Good results in a year of restructuring I am satisfied with the Norwegian Food Safety Authority's (NFSA) goal achievement in 2015. We have delivered good results in relation to our effect goals. Production and operations have gone as planned, while we have also introduced a new organisation model and carried out development projects. Food safety and the quality of drinking water in Norway are good. Only a small number of cases of illness resulting from food-borne infection or polluted drinking water were registered during the year. The situation as regards animal welfare, animal health and plant health is also good. At the same time, we are facing many challenges. Although 97% of the population have a high-quality drinking water supply, there is a high risk of contamination. The distribution networks need extensive upgrading, and the necessary repairs will entail significant costs for Norway. The situation for farmed fish and wild salmon and the environment around fish farms also represents a challenge. Our administrative regime is intended to contribute to sustainable growth, but it is the industry itself that has to find good solutions to resolve the problems. The salmon lice situation did not improve in 2015, but we do believe that the NFSA's actions helped to control the negative development. Poor fish health and fish welfare also cause great financial losses for fish farmers and prevent achievement of the goal of growth in the aquaculture industry. There were no major national incidents in 2015. However, we dealt with several incidents of a more limited scope. We are continuously working to develop and improve our emergency preparedness, both internally and in cooperation with other parties. We report on the effect of our work This year's report differs from our previous annual reports in that it places more emphasis on documenting the effects and results of our work than on the traditional reporting on activities, see the new requirements for annual reports. We have also highlighted the most important challenges and how we are to meet them. The development of this report has been a both demanding and useful process. Many different circumstances and players influence whether food in Norway is safe to eat and whether we have a good animal health and welfare situation. The Norwegian Food Safety Authority plays an important, but limited role in the efforts to achieve these effect goals. This makes our reporting more complex. The report is intended to show whether our efforts succeeded in our areas of responsibility and whether we, in cooperation with other parties, succeeded in achieving the desired effect of our work. The annual report also highlights where we need to develop our performance management and what the strategic management dialogue should focus on in the time ahead. Good production despite a reduction in full-time equivalents I consider our goal achievement in the areas of regulatory work and supervision production to be good. We communicated actively and efficiently within our area of activity. We continued the simplification of the regulatory framework, and several new national regulations contribute to making things simpler for business and industry. The goal for the supervision production was to conduct the same number of supervisory activities as in 2014. We almost achieved this goal, despite a reduction in full-time equivalents in 2015. 3 Strict management in a demanding year I aimed for underspending in 2015 to ensure that we would have funds available in 2016 and 2017 for restructuring and investments in digitalisation and new office solutions.