National Good Food Nation Plan: consultation analysis

Introduction

Background

1. The Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022 was passed in summer 2022. This Plan is intended to set out the Scottish Government’s goals for food policy and how it intends to achieve them. This Act enshrined the Scottish Government’s commitment to Scotland becoming a Good Food Nation (GFN) and set out the framework legislation for food policy. It placed a duty on Scottish Ministers, local authorities and health boards to produce GFN Plans. These plans will also have to set out the main Outcomes to be achieved in relation to food-related issues, the policies needed to do this and the measures that will be used to assess progress.

2. The Good Food Nation Act requires Scottish Ministers to have regard to specified provisions in international human rights instruments, including the right to adequate food, when preparing their national GFN Plan.

3. The first draft national Good Food Nation Plan represents how the Scottish Government intends to use the powers and levers it has to work with people, communities, businesses, agencies and organisations to meet the GFN ambitions.

4. The food and drink sector are a major contributor to Scotland’s economy and generates turnover of around £15 billion per annum. The sector is important to economically fragile rural and island communities. It is also recognised that the use of local food and drink products is beneficial to the environment. In addition, this helps to meet Scottish Government targets on climate change as well as supporting local economies.

5. A set of overarching Outcomes have been developed. These are ambitious and not meant to be achieved in the first iteration of the draft national Plan. They are broad in nature and designed to be applicable to policies across a wide range of areas. They represent what the SG would like a sustainable food system in Scotland to look like. They reflect the continued need to adjust how food is produced, processed, distributed and disposed of to address the challenges facing Scotland’s food system. These challenges include climate change, environmental degradation, inequitable access to food, and diet-related health inequalities.

6. The draft national Plan sets out:

• Part One: outlines the history of the GFN in Scotland, provides relevant background information and highlights how the draft national Plan will take effect.
• Part Two: proposes a set of six national GFN Outcomes. It sets out how they were developed and how progress will be measured.
• Part Three: highlights how working mechanisms within government will change and presents some of the key food related policies that are currently underway. It also presents what life would be like for different groups of people in a GFN.

7. The consultation on the draft national GFN Plan was launched on 24 January 2024 and closed on 22 April 2024. This built upon the framework outlined in the 2022 Act and adopted a holistic approach towards greater policy co-ordination across areas that can be impacted by food, including the environment, social and economic wellbeing, economic development and public health.

Methodology

8. The programme of stakeholder engagement involved three key elements: a consultation, a series of stakeholder workshops and distribution of interactive materials to schools across Scotland.

The consultation

9. Responses to the consultation were submitted using the Scottish Government consultation platform Citizen Space, by email or by post. Most respondents submitted their views via Citizen Space. Where responses were submitted in email or hard copy, these were entered manually onto the Citizen Space system to create a complete database of responses.

10. In total, after removing any blank and duplicate responses, there were 452 responses to the consultation paper; 171 were from organisations and 281 from individuals.

11. A breakdown of responses is provided in the following table. The highest number of organisation responses were submitted by trade association/representative bodies (36), followed by organisations within the third sector (32), community groups (27) and local authorities (22). A full breakdown of all organisation sub-groups is provided in Appendix 1.

Stakeholder workshops

12. As well as the consultation, Nourish Scotland, on behalf of the Scottish Government, conducted a series of stakeholder workshops. This included 15 workshops and information stalls.

13. Ten in-person and five online workshops were held. Over 250 individuals attended the in-person workshops. These were held in Edinburgh (36 attended), Alloa (20), Glasgow (40), Dundee (36), Dumfries (19), Galashiels (14), Oban (24), Peterhead (19), Orkney (20) and South Uist (20). Around 150 individuals attended the online workshops. Five information stalls were held. These engaged with over 450 people, based on the number of flyers distributed. Reports from these workshops were provided to the researchers to include in their analysis.

Engagement activity with children and young people, and teachers

14. A Good Food Nation Sample Session Plan was distributed to schools. This included a Microsoft form which asked questions about the Outcomes in easy read format. Teachers and pupils were encouraged to participate and offer their views. A total of 883 responses were received from children and young people (CYP) aged 13 or older. A further 202 responses were received from teachers who responded on behalf of children aged under 13. Data from questionnaires completed by children and young people^[1] and teachers were provided to the researchers to include in their analysis.

15. By and large, responses raised in the stakeholder workshops and by CYP and teachers tended to cover the same issues as those raised in responses to the consultation. Where new or different issues were raised, these have been included in the reporting, where relevant.

Analysis of responses

16. For the consultation analysis, the number responding at each question is not always the same as the number presented in the respondent group table. This is because not all respondents addressed all questions. This report indicates the number of respondents who commented at each question.

17. The researchers examined all comments made by respondents and noted the range of issues mentioned in responses, including reasons for opinions, specific examples or explanations, alternative suggestions or other comments. Grouping these issues together into similar themes allowed the researchers to identify whether any particular theme was specific to any particular respondent group or groups.

18. When considering group differences, it must also be recognised that where a specific opinion has been identified in relation to a particular group or groups, this does not indicate that other groups did not share this opinion, but rather that they simply did not comment on that particular point.

19. The analysis of responses is presented in the following chapters which follow the order of the questions raised in the consultation paper. While the consultation gave all who wished to comment an opportunity to do so, given the self-selecting nature of this type of exercise, any figures quoted here cannot be extrapolated to a wider population outwith the respondent sample.

20. The Citizen Space database was exported to an Excel working database for detailed analysis. Where respondents requested anonymity and/or confidentiality, their views have been taken into account in the analysis but quotations have not been taken from their responses. Quotations have been included where they illustrate a point of view clearly and have been selected across the range of respondent sub-groups.

21. Some respondents provided commentary on a specific question in their response to another question. Where this has occurred, responses have been moved to the relevant question to avoid duplication.