Food hygiene is a postcode lottery and diners “might as well toss a coin” to decide on a restaurant in some local authorities, according to a study.
Some areas of the country are “once again” falling well below basic food hygiene requirements, a study by Which? has found.
Which? based its rankings on three criteria: the proportion of premises ranked as high or medium risk in a local authority that were compliant with food hygiene requirements; the percentage of premises that had been rated for risk; and the proportion of follow- ups that were carried out by local authority inspectors.
They scored each authority against the UK average for the criteria, and then combined those scores, giving 50% of the weighting to the percentage of compliant high and medium risk premises and 25% of the weighting to each of the other two criteria.
Here is how Scotland’s local authorities performed, best through to worst. UK rankings are in brackets.
1. North Lanarkshire (42)
2. Orkney Islands (86)
3. North Ayrshire (105)
4. East Lothian (153)
5. Inverclyde (174)
6. Angus (210)
7. East Renfrewshire (213)
8. South Lanarkshire (243)
9. East Ayrshire (244)
10. South Ayrshire (246)
11. Renfrewshire (280)
12. Aberdeen City (281)
13. Dumfries and Galloway (287)
14. Western Isles (294)
15. Shetland Islands (321)
16. Midlothian (325)
17. Scottish Borders (327)
18. West Lothian (328)
19. Aberdeenshire (330)
20. Stirling (337)
21. Fife (346)
22. Clackmannanshire (349)
23. Highland (352)
24. East Dunbartonshire (359)
25. Dundee City (366)
26. Moray (369)
27. City of Glasgow (373)
28. West Dunbartonshire (376)
29. Argyll and Bute (385)
30. Falkirk (392)
31. Perth and Kinross (393)
32. City of Edinburgh (397)