Food Competency framework: food skills and knowledge for young people aged 7-9, 11-12, 14 and 16+

The key proposals are to develop a consensus view of the minimum food skills and knowledge that young people should know, understand, and be able to apply by the ages of 7-9, 11-12, 14 and 16+ years and promote and encourage organisations to adopt these food competences through a voluntary approach.

The Agency is consulting on the food skills and knowledge that young people should know, understand, and be able to apply by the ages of 7-9, 11-12, 14 and 16+ years. The food competences help to ensure that young people, throughout the UK, can make healthier food choices. These skills and knowledge are framed within four themes:

• diet and health
• consumer awareness
• food preparation and handling skills
• food safety

Audience
An important element of the food competences is that they do not represent a curriculum specification and apply equally to learning at school, in the home, through society and community experiences.

Such a broad context means that the food competences are of potential interest and use to a range of individuals and organisations, including young people, parents and carers, teachers and community workers, local and national Government, education and health policy makers, non-governmental organisations, health workers, including dieticians and nutritionists, food industry and retailers and others involved in the development of young people.

Developing the Food competences
The Agency commissioned the British Nutrition Foundation to develop the food competences for public consultation. Our aim is to develop a consensus view, and to work towards this the Agency and British Nutrition Foundation carried out informal consultation with a range of stakeholders. You can find further information on this process, those involved and a flavour of the comments received in the attached report submitted by the British Nutrition Foundation to the Agency.

Young people are sometimes hard to engage and to interest in consultations. To inform our approach the Agency is utilising its network of nine school councils in England to gauge the views and ideas of primary and secondary aged young people. We will also work with Fairbridge, a charity who support and work with inner city young people, and St.Andrew’s Youth Club in London, to explore issues relating to how these young people develop their food skills and knowledge.

In the attached draft Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) we consider the various options and provide the background to and the possible implications of developing the food competences. We examined each of the following three broad approaches we should take – doing nothing, a voluntary adoption and a legislative approach. The Agency’s preferred approach is voluntary adoption. The Agency welcomes your comments and views on our proposed decision and importantly the content and assumptions made in the draft RIA.

Delivering the food competences through the preferred route
The food competences will help us identify some of the building blocks, which can help young people learn more about food and health. They represent a way in which those responsible for and/or working with young people can assess any gaps in learning opportunities. Importantly an aim is to help young people look for learning opportunities and become empowered. There already exists a number of national and local food and cooking activities and resources aimed at helping young people learn more about food, cooking and health. The Agency itself has developed a range of such resources, including an out of school hours cooking club programme 'What’s Cooking' (formerly Cook-it!). You can find details of this at the link to 'Food and cookery clubs' below.

Rather than create further resources, it is our intention to encourage organisations to use the food competences and embed them within their own activity and so help young people work towards acquiring these important life skills. The Agency welcomes your views on how you would use and how you might expect others to use the food competences.

Questions on the Draft Regulatory Impact Assessment
What do you think of the themes and statements of skills and knowledge detailed in the food competency framework? For instance are they consistent with what you would expect young people of these ages to achieve - are there any gaps?

Do you agree with our assessment that encouraging a voluntary approach to using the food competence framework is most beneficial in terms of impact and cost?

Who (individuals or organisations) do you see as being best placed to make sure that young people have the opportunities to acquire these skills and knowledge?

How should we promote these to young people – do we need to develop a young people’s version?

We propose a voluntary approach to adopting the food competences, which may affect small and other food businesses. What resource implications, including administrative costs would you anticipate falling to your business as you respond to possible changes in consumer’s choices?

We asked you about costs incurred due to a voluntary approach. This question may be of particular interest to businesses and enforcement bodies, such as local authorities/HMI’s. What would be the effect on your resource/cost ‘if’ we were to pursue a legislative approach to the food competences?

What additional resource and/or support materials/activities would you need to help communicate/promote these competencies, through a voluntary approach, to your audience, for example to teachers or community workers?

Next steps
The Agency and the British Nutrition Foundation will consider your responses to this consultation alongside the views of the young people we are consulting. Based on this information we will publish a consensus view of the food competences for young people aged 7-9, 11-12, 14 and 16+. We will revise the draft RIA and include details of our intended implementation plan. We will also consider whether we need to develop further supporting materials and take action to promote and encourage individuals/organisations to work towards the competences.

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. For the purpose of this consultation we have adopted an ‘opt-in’ approach to the publication of your personal details. When you look at the Publication of Personal data form (annex B) you will find a series of boxes with a brief reason why we are asking you to opt-in.

If you are agree to the publication of your personal details then please indicate on the form and return to us. You will also note, from the publication of personal data form, that we have commissioned the British Nutrition Foundation (BNF) to summarise the consultation responses. This will involve sharing your response with the BNF, which may include personal data, such as your full name and contact address details. If you agree to us sharing your personal information with the BNF then please indicate in the box provided and return the form.

If you are agreeable to the Agency contacting you in the future about activity relating to the food competences for young people and/or other food related issues then please indicate in the appropriate box and return the form.

If you decide not to return the form then please note that this does not mean that we will treat your response to the consultation as confidential, just your personal data.

This consultation has been prepared in accordance with the HM Government 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)

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 the FSA Consultation Co-ordinator by email: consultationcoordinator@foodstandards.gsi.gov.uk