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FSA Forum
Method(s) Used
Name of person who posted the project: Laura Miller
Location of project: United Kingdom
Date when the project started: 2006
Date when the project ended/project ongoing: 2006
Background to project: The FSA is an independent government department set up by an Act of Parliament in 2000 to protect public health and consumer interests in relation to food.
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The FSA provides advice and information to the public and government on food safety, nutrition and diet. It also protects consumers through effective food enforcement and monitoring.
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The Agency is concerned with the whole food industry - from farming and food production, packaging and distribution, to retail and catering - and addresses safety issues at every stage of the chain.
'Safer food, better business' (SFBB) - introduced in September 2005 - is a practical pack designed to help small catering businesses comply with food hygiene regulations. It was developed by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in partnership with catering businesses and local authorities.
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Other food safety management packs have been produced by FSA Scotland and FSA Northern Ireland ("CookSafe" and "Safe Catering" respectively).
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Purpose of project: The aim was to give local authorities and catering businesses the opportunity to share their views, experiences, good practice and ideas. The launch of the forum coincided with the release of the small retailers' version of 'Safer food, better business' published on 31 May 2006.
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The Hansard Society was asked to evaluate the success of the online forum.
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Project activities: Online deliberative forum (third-party build and hosted on external servers).
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The forum was readable by anyone, but registration was required to contribute.
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Project results: Strengths
- Diversity of registrants ranged from caterers to enforcement officers.
- Clear delineation of responsibilities between communications, policy and web teams. Greater interaction between these teams through close collaboration on forum tasks;
- FSA prepared its own forum designs to ensure coordination with corporate and SFBB branding;
- Speed of FSA responses to arguments and queries raised in the forum;
- Comment moderation carried out by the FSA.
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Potential for improvement
- Propensity of registrants to spectate rather than participate (though the evaluators recognise that spectating is a legitimate form of engagement);
- Lack of clarity in influence available to participants at beginning of forum;
- Little detail provided to participants by FSA on their influence on the published pack.
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The Food Standards Agency has a good track record in using micro-sites to engage stakeholder groups and is positive about exploration of new online techniques and tools. This previous experience proved useful in allocating staff resources to this participation exercise. Again, this was another instance of policy, communications and web teams working well together and ensuring that there was a clear delineation of responsibilities.
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However, like some of the other case studies in Digital Dialogues, the registration rates suffered from inadequate marketing. The active participation rate was low but a reasonable number of registrations were received. Although the forum was promoted with trade press that would have been read by those stakeholders who the forum was aimed at, the shortage of lead-in time reduced the impact that these articles could have had.
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It became clear some way into the forum that there was a lack of clarity about its purpose and the influence that participants had. The majority of participants arrived at the forum with the purpose of informing the Agency about their views on the pack and how it could develop. However, the Agency had intended for the forum to provide a platform for exchange between stakeholder peers. This diluted the effectiveness of the exercise and obstructed deliberation.
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In their feedback, participants were very positive about the forum. Much of the feedback specified two key advantages: it was a quick and convenient way of participating, and it allowed open discussion. Other factors identified included allowing anonymous participation and the ability to focus in on technical details.
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Participants were disappointed that the forum did not run for a longer time. They also wondered if more promotion could have led to greater numbers participating. Some, however, speculated that the low participation rates may have been because many small catering businesses did not have the necessary IT hardware to access the forum.
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The department's communications, consultation coordinators and policy teams worked closely together on this online consultation exercise, and this collaborative effort was evidently beneficial for sharing the set up and administrative labour of the consultations.
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The department was disappointed by the take up and thought that there would have been more deliberation between participants. The data they received through the forum reinforced much of what they already knew about the pack, they said, but they saw great value in providing the forum as a place for disseminating information and encouraging greater interaction between their stakeholders.
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Outcomes
The SFBB pack for small retailers has now been published. Feedback and suggestions made in the forum have, where possible, been included in a revised version of the pack scheduled for publication in October 2007.
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The FSA has expressed an interest in incorporating online channels into its future consultations.
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Contact details: eDemocracy Programme,
Hansard Society,
40-43 Chancery Lane
London WC2A 1JA
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e - edemocracy@hansard.lse.ac.uk
t - 020 7438 1222
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