An independent review is to be carried out into the Food Standards Agency's response to the horse meat scandal, it has been announced.
The FSA board agreed to the review, which will be headed by Professor Pat Troop with a secretariat provided by the FSA, on Wednesday.
The FSA said Prof Troop will have unrestricted access to all documents held by the agency that are relevant to the scope of the review as well as to FSA board members and officials.
The findings of the review will be presented to the board at its open meeting on June 4, with a formal report to be submitted to the FSA by the end of June for publication.
The project will feed into a larger Government review of the issue.
Professor Troop is currently vice chairwoman of Cambridge University Hospitals. She was previously chief executive of the Health Protection Agency for five years and deputy chief medical officer at the Department of Health between 1999 and 2003.
Mary Creagh, Labour's environment spokeswoman, said the food regulatory system was "unfit for purpose".
She said: "The Government's fragmentation of the FSA in 2010 has left our food regulatory system unfit for purpose.
"The FSA knew that the Irish were testing for horse meat last November, yet did nothing until positive results came back.
"The FSA also needs to explain why 14 horses that tested positive for bute entered the human food chain before the FSA issued a recall notice."