ACAF Code of Practice - Role of the Departmental Representatives

Role of the Departmental Representatives 

• Meetings of the ACAF can be attended by Departmental Representatives. The Representatives are currently nominated by, and are drawn from, those with relevant policy interests and responsibilities in the FSA. 

• Representatives are not Members of the ACAF and do not participate in Committee business in the manner of Members. 

• The role of the Representatives is to keep the Department of Agency informed about the Committee’s work and act as a conduit for the exchange of information. They do this by: 

1. Advising the Committee on relevant policy developments and the implications of Committee proposals. 

2. Informing the Committee’s work through the provision of information. 

3. Being informed by the Committee on matters of mutual interest    

4. Sharing the responsibility, with the Secretariat, of ensuring that information is not unnecessarily withheld from the Committee. 

5. Making the Committee aware of the existence of any information that has been withheld from the Committee on the basis that it is exempt from disclosure under Freedom of Information legislation unless that legislation provides a basis for not doing so. 

6. Ensuring that their parent departments are promptly informed of any matters which may require a response from Government.  

Department Representatives: Food Standards Agency Policy Colleagues 

• Meetings of ACAF, where relevant, can be attended by Feed Policy Secretariats. 

• The role of these representatives is to act as observers for their departments, to understand the advice provided to their departments by the Committee and to understand the reasoning used to derive that advice when the Committee risk assesses feed additives. 

• They are not to partake in discussion and must abide by the rules as for a departmental representative. 

• These representatives are required to give a policy update on their respective topic areas to update the Committee on the status of feed additives applications, and to inform the Committee of the number of submitted applications. 

Department Representatives: Food Standards Agency Devolved Administrations 

• Meetings of the ACAF can be attended by representative(s) from each of the devolved administrations. The representative(s) should be from the respective risk assessment departments. 

• The main role of the representative(s) is to ensure that the interests of each devolved administration are represented and to act as observers for their departments, to understand the advice provided by the Committee and the reasoning behind it. 

• The representative is not a Member of the Committee and does not take part in the meeting. 

Department Representatives: Observers 

• Meetings of the ACAF can only be attended by departmental representatives as observers. 

• The meetings of ACAF are closed meetings and cannot be attended by the members of the public. This is due to the commercially sensitive nature of the work of the Committee.