Proposed National Good Food Nation Plan: Equality Impact Assessment

Background

The Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022 (“the Act”) places a duty on Scottish Ministers to produce a national good food nation plan which sets out the main outcomes in relation to food-related issues which the Scottish Ministers want to be achieved in relation to Scotland. The plan must also set out the policies that the Scottish Ministers intend to pursue in order to achieve these outcomes and the measures and indicators that will be used to assess progress. The Outcomes in the proposed Plan laid in Parliament are:

• Outcome 1: The food environment in Scotland enables people to eat well. Everyone benefits from reliable and dignified access to safe, nutritious, affordable, enjoyable, sustainable and age-appropriate food.
• Outcome 2: Scotland’s food system is sustainable and contributes to a flourishing natural environment on our land and in our waters. It supports our net zero and climate adaptation ambitions and plays an important role in maintaining and improving animal health and welfare and in restoring and regenerating biodiversity.
• Outcome 3: Scotland’s food environment and wider food system enables and promotes a physically and mentally healthy population. This leads to the prevention of, and a reduction in, diet-related conditions.
• Outcome 4: Our food and drink sector is prosperous, diverse, innovative, and vital to national and local economic and social well-being. It is key to making Scotland food secure and food resilient, and creates and sustains jobs and businesses underpinned by fair work standards throughout food supply chains.
• Outcome 5: People and communities are empowered to participate in, and shape, their food system. Scotland has a thriving food culture with a population who are educated about good and sustainable food.
• Outcome 6: Decisions we make in Scotland contribute positively to local and global food systems transformation. Scotland actively engages in learning and exchanging knowledge and best practice internationally.

These Outcomes are very broad and long-term. They are not intended to be achieved within the life of the first Plan, but will instead carry over into future Plans. The Plan will be reviewed and, where appropriate, revised every five years. We will also report every two years on progress towards the Outcomes. The long-term nature of the Outcomes means it is difficult to assess what direct or indirect impact they might have on individuals and protected groups within the lifetime of a particular iteration of the Plan. Moreover, it will be the actions taken to achieve the Outcomes that will have an impact, as opposed to the Outcomes themselves, and as already noted above this action (such as new policies) will be subject to their own individual impact assessments.

The Plan was developed with extensive engagement with policy colleagues across the Scottish Government, as well as informal engagement with key stakeholders at important developmental stages. We also conducted a public consultation that consisted of the online consultation on Citizen Space, this public consultation also included targeted engagement with children and young people.

The overall Good Food Nation policy aims will have an impact on all people across Scotland. However, this first Plan is unlikely to produce any immediate impacts, as the immediate effect of this first Plan will be to create a food policy baseline and embed the Good Food Nation concept across the Scottish Government.