Food Standards Agency urged to better understand challenges councils face

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) needs to better understand the challenges faced by its delivery partners such as local authorities, the first ever capability review of the organisation has found.

Other areas for improvement identified included:

• The need to work more collaboratively to develop collective ownership of food and feed safety;
• Governance and ensuring that the FSA board and its executive work effectively together; and
• Responding quickly and proactively to changes in the agency’s external environment.

The review identified a number of areas in which the FSA performs well, such as ensuring recognition purpose of ‘safer food for the nation’ by the majority of its stakeholders.

It was also recognised for its highly skilled workforce and its role in consumer engagement.

The review acknowledged that the agency faces a number of key challenges “now and in the future”.

These included the ongoing impact of increasing budgetary constraints on the FSA and its delivery partners. The agency will see its budget fall from £143m in 2012/13 to £132m in 2014/15.

It also highlighted “the ongoing impact of challenging economic circumstances on FSA stakeholders, including: consumers and their decisions and behaviours, and the food industry which the FSA regulates”.

Under the Civil Service Reform Plan, capability reviews will be replaced with departmental improvement plans. The FSA said it was committed to active participation in this process.

A copy of the capability review can be viewed here.