Draft Incident Prevention Strategy Plan

The Agency is seeking views and comments on the Food Standards Agency's Draft Incident Prevention Strategy Plan. This sets out a cross-Agency programme of work to help deliver the Agency's Strategic Plan target of developing, by the end of December 2010, effective interventions to tackle food safety problems at source before they become incidents. The broad aims of the Incident Prevention Strategy Plan are:

• To learn from past incidents to ensure that past mistakes are not repeated.
• To identify and address the main sources of incidents.
• To be as prepared as possible in future to anticipate and deal with emerging, and re-emerging risks.

With this in mind the programme of incident prevention work has been brought together in the strategy under three broad themes:

• intelligence gathering and horizon scanning
• building trust and partnerships
• better science and better regulation

Many of the projects that make up the programme of incident prevention work are in the early stages and the set of measures that will be used to monitor the overall success of the Incident Prevention Strategy have yet to be finalised. Once these measures have been agreed we will be able to identify the elements of the strategy that we believe will result in costs or benefits to the private or public sector, and we will undertake separate consultations where necessary.

Comments and views on the draft Strategy Plan are invited within the consultation period from interested parties. In particular we would welcome comments on:

• whether you consider there to be any gaps in this strategy. If so, what are they and how can they be filled?
• while the strategy identifies a number of possible measures, we would appreciate any additional suggestions on how best to measure the success of the strategy?
• the specific projects included so far under the three themes in Appendix 1 of the Strategy Plan and whether you have any suggestions for additional projects

Background
Previous incidents have shown that they can require substantial resources to manage, can undermine consumer confidence and can be costly to individual companies and national economies. We believe that building in the concept of prevention from the outset will be more effective than monitoring after production in reducing the number of incidents. This in turn should lead to less food waste, provide greater consumer reassurance on the safety of food sold in the UK, free up resources and result in cost savings.

In developing the strategy, the main focus has been on identifying activities that will have the most impact on preventing food incidents. The Incident Prevention Strategy reflects the various suggestions made by external stakeholders over the past year. The draft strategy was also discussed at a stakeholder workshop on 10 January and those present welcomed the opportunity to help shape the strategy.

The measures to be used in assessing the success of the incident prevention strategy have yet to be finalised. We are particularly keen to receive suggestions on robust measures for measuring success. The strategy identifies a number of possible measures. However, we would appreciate suggestions for more specific measures.

When responding, please state whether you are responding as a private individual or on behalf of an organisation/company (with a brief summary of the people it represents).

Actions following the consultation
Once the consultation is completed, comments made will be taken into account during revisions to the Strategy Plan. It is anticipated that the revised Strategy Plan will be published within two months of the close of the consultation.

Impact Assessment
Criterion 6 of the Cabinet Office Code of Practice states that a consultation must follow better regulation best practice, including carrying out an Impact Assessment (IA). An IA is not included with this consultation because you are being consulted on the whole strategy. For those elements of the strategy which we believe will result in costs or benefits to the private or public sector, we shall do IAs as those specific elements are developed and consult on them separately

This consultation has been prepared in accordance with the Better Regulation Executive's Code of Practice on Consultation, which states that a consultation must follow better regulation best practice, including carrying out an Impact Assessment (Regulatory Impact Assessment in Scotland). The assessment is included in the consultation documents.

We are interested in what you thought of this consultation and would therefore welcome your general feedback on both the consultation package and overall consultation process. If you would like to assist us to improve the quality of future consultations, please feel free to share your thoughts with us by using the Consultation Feedback Questionnaire.

Consultation feedback questionnaire (Word)

Consultation feedback questionnaire (pdf)

In accordance with the FSA principle of openness our Information Centre at Aviation House will hold a copy of the completed consultation. Responses will be open to public access upon request. The FSA will also publish a summary of responses, which may include personal data, such as your full name and contact address details. If you do not want this information to be released, please complete and return the Publication of Personal Data Form. Return of this form does not mean that we will treat your response to the consultation as confidential, just your personal data.

Data protection form (Word)

Data protection form (pdf)

Within three months of a consultation ending we aim to publish a summary of responses received and provide a link to it from this page.

If, after three months, the summary is still not showing, please contact the person who was responsible for the original consultation. Alternatively, you can contact Chris Harvey, the FSA Consultation Co-ordinator, on 020 7276 8630.
Email: chris.harvey@foodstandards.gsi.gov.uk