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Listen to this siteMonday 21 November 2005
The most important and challenging aspect of the Agency's work taking forward its policy on sustainable development has been the development of guidance on sustainability assessment for its staff.
It is through building sustainability considerations into policymaking that Government departments can make the greatest impact on sustainable development.
In order to take sustainability into account in the Agency's policymaking, campaigns and projects, and in formulating advice to consumers, staff need to be able to assess the sustainability of what is proposed.
The fundamental policy assessment tool used within Government is the Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA).
The RIA requires consideration of impacts in all of the areas needed for a sustainability assessment.
This includes the full range of environmental, social and economic impacts.
However, the RIA and related guidance do not advise on how to determine the relative sustainability of the different options being considered.
The RIA guidance is also necessarily generic, as it has to be suitable for use by all Government Departments.
It therefore does not help build an understanding of sustainability issues and in particular how they relate to the Agency.
For these reasons, we have developed guidance for staff on sustainability assessments.
This can be used either alongside the RIA process or as a stand alone assessment.
The guidance will help Agency staff to further develop the use of RIAs in policy development and ensure that sustainability is fully recognised and taken into account.
This can only be to the benefit of good policy and decision making, which in turn will help take forward the Agency's remit of protecting consumers.
The Agency's sustainability assessment guidance has been developed in consultation with staff and stakeholders.
It is being piloted on a range of live policy projects within the Agency.
The Agency intends to keep the guidance under review to ensure that it reflects current thinking on sustainable development and that it meets the needs of its staff.
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(pdf 63KB) Guidance for FSA staff on Sustainable DevelopmentDownload pdf
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