This block is designed to comply with strategic objective 2.4:

STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE 2.4: To reduce as far as possible, and in all cases to acceptable levels, the exposure of consumers to emerging risks or especially concerning, difficult to control risks.

It is occasionally deemed necessary to coordinate official controls at the national level, between the Autonomous Communities and the Spanish Agency for Consumer Affairs, Food Safety and Nutrition (AECOSAN), to optimise effectiveness and efficiency. This may be for operational reasons (e.g. lack of accredited laboratories), economic reasons (e.g. high cost of testing) or for reasons of urgency (e.g. European Commission [EC] requests for large numbers of analyses, emerging risks, etc.).

These controls are coordinated as national official control campaigns, within the framework of the activities carried out under the National Plan for Official Control of the Food Chain 2016–2020 (PNCOCA). Detail of the procedure for action can be found in the document AECOSAN_SGCAAPCO/AP-7/PNT- CONTROL CAMPAIGNS: Procedure for the Management of National Campaigns for the Official Control of Foods on the Market. This document describes the management, design, presentation of results, measures to be taken in the event of non-compliance, and the conclusions of control campaigns.

The purpose of the official food control campaigns is to coordinate specific official control activities between AECOSAN and the public health departments of the Autonomous Communities, within the framework of PNCOCA.

The results of the implementation of these programmes are reported in the annual report of the results of official controls.