Performance and Resources report quarter 4 2022 to 2023: our capability and capacity

Key successes in the quarter

We presented a new three-year corporate plan for the FSA to the Board in March, setting out how we will turn the ambitions of our strategy into concrete action. We also presented the way this has informed our priorities for 2023/24.

We published our people plan for 2023 to 2026, setting out how we will improve as an employer and the benefits this will bring us, the businesses we regulate and the public whose health we protect. It includes an updated set of ASPIRE values, which articulate how we want to show up at work and what we expect of one another.

We continue to deliver collaborative projects in the space of food that is healthier and more sustainable. This includes the School Food Standards Compliance Pilot to investigate the feasibility of local authorities completing checks to identify potential non-compliance with nutritional standards of food in schools. Research evidence collected from the evaluation of the second phase of the pilot was used to inform the final phase of the pilot launched in February 2023. 

Concerns/risks

While we have been able to re-commence some paused work that we de-prioritised earlier in the year, we will need to keep this under review and carefully consider which activities the FSA has the capacity to take forward in 2023/24 (this is described in the three-year corporate plan).

Next steps

We launch our three-year corporate plan internally at the start of quarter 1 2023/24 and publish a more detailed version externally later in the quarter. We engage with FSA staff to explore what the plan means for their teams and ensure their plans for the coming year align with the overall objectives of the organisation.

We will continue to deliver key projects in the space of food that is healthier and more sustainable.

We will continue to keep the FSA’s workload under review and consider whether further prioritisation is needed in the course of 2023/24, including revisiting items that were reduced, stopped or paused.

In quarter 1 of 2023/24, we will recommence work considering the FSA’s role in contributing to food that is healthier and more sustainable, building on the work described in the three-year plan, this work was paused earlier in the year. This will include more precise definitions of our ambition, and ideas for further specific work we could contribute to as resources and circumstances allow.