Bradford Council is to switch to a national scheme which gives ratings to premises selling food, building on the success of the Score on the Doors website.

The Food Hygiene Rating Scheme has been developed by the Food Standards Agency in partnership with local authorities.

It is similar to the Council’s existing scheme, but rates premises from zero, which means urgent improvement is necessary, to a top rating of five, which means very good, instead of using stars. These are based on the findings of inspections by food safety officers.

Food outlets such as restaurants, takeaways and pubs will be included, and the Council hopes to have transferred the data over to the new system by April. The new scheme covers a wider range of premises, including butchers, greengrocers and pubs that do not sell food. New-style certificates will be issued and premises will be expected to display a sticker at the entrance for the benefit of customers.

Councillor Andrew Thornton, the Council’s executive member with responsibility for environment, said: “Although we have run our own successful food hygiene scheme for a number of years, we have opted to change to the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme as having a single scheme provides the public with consistency across the nation. The rating will therefore have the same significance for people wherever they buy their food.

“It will continue to have the same great benefits for local food businesses and we hope proprietors will recognise that displaying a good food hygiene rating is good for business.”

Ratings under the national scheme will be available to view on the Food Standards Agency website food.gov.uk/ ratings, with details on Bradford eateries being uploaded from April.