Committee publication · Correspondence · 16 December 2025
Correspondence from the Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland following evidence session on 21 October 2025, dated 9 December 2025
From: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
Inquiry: Animal and plant health
Summary
The Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland provide supplementary evidence to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee following their October 2025 testimony. They detail AI systems developed to monitor food risks post-EU exit, explain mitigation steps for lost access to EU regulatory networks, outline de-prioritisation of divergent reform work ahead of anticipated SPS agreement negotiations, and set out significant resource constraints: FSA deploys 60 staff (needing 80 FTE) with no additional funding; FSS has 6 staff (needing 15–20 FTE) and estimates £1.7m annual cost from existing budget.
Key findings
- FSA developed Signal Dashboard aggregating 50+ global data sources using machine learning to identify food risks, replacing manual monitoring previously supported by EU systems like RASFF.
- UK exit caused loss of access to four critical EU systems: RASFF (real-time food safety alerts), TRACES (import/export certification), EU Food Fraud Network, and EFSA Scientific Panels, requiring domestic system development and bilateral arrangements.
- Both agencies pausing or slowing reform work that would increase divergence from EU standards, pending SPS agreement conclusion (anticipated 2027), to avoid wasting resources on changes likely to be reversed.
- FSA allocated no additional funding for SPS work in Spending Review; currently deploying 60 staff (estimates 80 FTE needed) from existing 1,600-person workforce under 'flat cash' settlement. FSS estimates £1.7m annual cost for 15–20 FTE from existing £290-person budget.
- FSA and FSS identify access to RASFF, TRACES, EU Food Fraud Network, and EFSA panels as priorities for any EU agreement, arguing these are essential for food safety and fraud prevention capability.
Tone
FactualTopics
Key actors
Katie Pettifer, Geoff Ogle, Food Standards Agency, Food Standards Scotland, Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, HM Treasury, UK Government, Defra, Devolved Governments
Notable line
“Both FSA and FSS Boards view access to agencies, systems and databases (and by extension, decision-making influence) as an important requirement to allow the UK to have safe dynamic alignment.”
Key Quotes
“While numerous open data sources report food and feed issues, manual extraction is resource-intensive and third-party systems are costly.”
“… of full access reduces our ability to track cross-border risks quickly.”
“… we are reassessing our approach to work that would increase divergence from the EU and are conscious that in many cases it will not be a good use of taxpayers' money, and businesses' time, to make changes that are likely to be reversed by an agreement based on dynamic alignment.”
“The FSA received no additional resource for the SPS agreement work in the Spending Review and has reprioritised work and redeployed staff to set up our SPS agreement team.”
“Without additional funding, diverting staff to SPS work risks impacting FSS's ability to meet existing legal obligations and priorities.”
Source · parliament.uk record ↗