Food Standards Agency abolished

End of the FSA

According to the Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, the UK's Food Standards Agency (FSA) will be abolished and its functions taken over by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Department of Health.

The food watchdog was originally set up to protect the population during the ‘mad cow' disease crisis, but the new coalition government has decreed that its duties can be assigned elsewhere in a bid to save money.

The FSA currently employs 2000 staff and spends £135 million ($205 million) a year. It is primarily in charge of safety and hygiene in the food chain, but those responsibilities will not fall under the jurisdiction of Defra.

It is believed that the decision to close the department is also to do with the running battle with food companies over the introduction of colour-coded "traffic light" warnings for groceries, TV dinners and snacks.

Cutting costs

With the new Conservative-Liberal Democrat government looking to reduce a budget deficit of £156 billion, Lansley has previously stated he is aiming to make close to £190 million a year in savings from independent agencies or "arms-length bodies" to spend elsewhere in the NHS.

Reaction to the news has been negative with Tam Fry of the National Obesity Forum saying to The Guardian that it was "crazy" to dismember the FSA. "It had a hugely important role in improving the quality of foodstuffs in Britain and it was vital to have at the centre of government a body that championed healthy food. This appears to be the old Conservative party being the political wing of business."

Tom MacMillan of the Food Ethics Council was equally damned saying: "The agency was set up to earn public trust after a succession of food scares. Its wobbles, like the latest row over GM foods, have come when that commitment has wavered. Any departments absorbing the FSA's role should heed that lesson carefully, doing even more to invite scrutiny and banish the slightest whiff of secrecy, or the new government could face another BSE."

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