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The Food Standards Agency has launched a Capability Review to ensure the organisation is delivering on its core objective to protect the public's health and consumer interests in relation to food and feed. The Capability Review will assess the FSA’s performance against a framework that covers strategy, delivery and leadership.

Capability Reviews are conducted by all government departments to assess their performance and ensure that they are equipped to meet their objectives, to identify improvements and are prepared for future challenges.

Using the Government’s Capability Review model, an internal review team has been set up to gather evidence from a range of sources, including FSA staff, the Devolved Administrations, Defra, the Department of Health and external stakeholders, such as industry, local authorities and consumer representatives.

This evidence will be used to develop an initial report, which will be scrutinised by an independent external review panel. The panel will be able to challenge the FSA on any aspect of the report and call for further evidence, if needed.

An action plan for delivering improvements identified from the review, and regular updates on progress made, will be published once the review process has ended, by the end of spring 2012.

A copy of the Capability Review model, including questions that are the basis for assessing the FSA’s overall performance, can be found at the link below.

If you have experiences and insights that would be helpful in the FSA Capability Review, please email: capability.review@foodstandards.gsi.gov.uk before Monday 9 April 2012.