URL www.fsascience.net
CASE STUDY OWNER Food Standards Agency
Overview
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) was formed by an Act of Parliament in 2000. A statutory body, it advises government on food policy, enforces safety laws and monitors food production to ensure compliance; its role is to represent consumers and raise awareness about topical issues relating to food safety.
At arms length from government (it is a department without a ministerial brief, while remaining subject to Parliamentary scrutiny), the FSA acts independently and takes an evidence-based approach; the work of its Chief Scientist is pivotal in ensuring that the FSA maintains its standing in relation to all interested parties within government, the public and the food industry.
The FSA attempts to ensure that its engagement and consultation processes are open and transparent – the Chief Scientist’s blog provides a means of promoting this aspect of its work, soliciting feedback on thematic issues where possible.
Policy purpose
The blog was set up to raise the Chief Scientist’s profile and increase public understandings of the FSA. In its first year, it tackled issues that were in the public eye (such as traffic light labelling of food) and addressed high-profile issues (such as avian flu) – at times setting and at others responding to the press agenda. Its main intention was to bypass the ‘government silo’ and provide a more direct means of engagement with citizens.
Its success in creating an engagement channel led to it being a runner up for the Newcomer’s competition at the New Statesman New Media Awards (2007). It has since continued to develop, with the Chief Scientist raising diverse topics of scientific interest (such as the effect of drinking caffeine during pregnancy), as well as high profile stories (such as the Chief Scientist’s presence on BBC2’s Newsnight). The blog has also carried some off-topic content (such as a story about the Sweeny Todd movie).
Such attention to the media context fulfils its main remit – namely to raise the Chief Scientist’s public profile. The blog continues to address topical food-related issues and to engage the public.
Model
The blog uses open source open access software. Mainly written by the Chief Scientist, the blog has also featured stories written by FSA staff.
Publicity
The blog was initially promoted via press releases and through the FSA’s outreach and engagement work. However, it has since developed its own momentum and has acquired a media presence: it has been positively featured in Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science column (The Guardian), while the Chief Scientist has appeared on BBC2’s Newsnight programme, been profiled in The Times’ times2 and made the front page of The Daily Telegraph.
Other methods of engagement
The FSA engages in stakeholder and public engagement to ensure that its decisions are as open and transparent as possible. Its main method is consumer outreach, learning about the dietary practices of diverse communities.
The FSA organises two offline stakeholder forums a year enabling consumer organisations, pressure groups, industry stakeholders and enforcement authorities to bring matters to the attention of the department. Between times, individuals and organisations are encouraged to contact the FSA.
User profiles
Registration was not required of visitors to the site. Information about users was therefore gleaned from their voluntary completion of our pre-engagement survey. The average number of unique visits during the evaluation period was 6600 per month; those completing the pre-engagement survey constituted under 1 per cent of site users. Of these, 80 per cent said that they were English (5 per cent were Scottish, 5 per cent Swiss, 5 per cent Australian and 5 per cent Irish).
The site appears to have reversed the gendered pattern of engagement typical of the internet: 68.4 per cent of respondents were women, compared to 31.6 per cent men. The age range of respondents reflected the online norm:
All respondents claimed to be regular internet users with the majority accessing it from home (25 per cent), work (20 per cent) or a combination of the two (50 per cent); 5 per cent mentioned accessing the internet via their university.
The majority (85 per cent) were not active bloggers, but 15 per cent had their own websites. A higher proportion of respondents read policy-related blogs regularly (45 per cent) – those cited included food safety blogs and the BBC website, suggesting that the FSA blog had a strong appeal to those interested in food policy (85 per cent said that they were very interested in food policy compared to 15 per cent who were moderately so).
This did not preclude an interest in general policy: half claimed to be fairly interested in politics, with 30 per cent expressing keen interest, 15 per cent claiming a lack of interest and a further 5 per cent showing some ambivalence.
Political engagement was slightly above average amongst these respondents: around 37 per cent had been in contact with an MP or local councillor (with 5 per cent being in touch with both); around 58 per cent had not been in touch with either, although all had voted in national elections (84 per cent had voted in local elections; around 58 per cent in European elections). Involvement with the FSA was higher: 75 per cent of respondents were already in contact with the department and 45 per cent had been in contact with them professionally.
Access routes to the site suggest a food orientation: 55 per cent of respondents claimed to have come to the blog via the main FSA homepage; it was recommended to a further 10 per cent and an additional 10 per cent sought it out via search engines. Media coverage also drove people to the site (such coverage was in trade press, and was generally positive), with 25 per cent of respondents saying that they’d heard about it that way – the remaining 25 per cent said that they’d picked up a link to the FSA blog via another website.
The site managed to attract active engagement (rather than transitory traffic) with 15 per cent choosing to actively engage by posting a comment and 45 per cent coming to the blog for work/study purposes. Only 15 per cent expressed a passing interest in its content; 45 per cent wanted specific information, either from the Chief Scientist’s posts or from those of other visitors.
A newer site, or one that had not established a community of readers would inevitably have drawn more people to it out of curiosity, spurred by media attention. We shall see in a moment the rate of repeat visits which should confirm the reported activity of the site by respondents.
Site performance
Figures in the table above suggests that there was some repeat traffic to the site (each user averaged two visits). The fluctuating figures are seasonal – the FSA blog was relatively quiet in the summer; the preceding months were more active because of discussions about high-profile media issues (e.g., avian flu and traffic lighting of food labels).
The graph above highlights the relationship between the blog author’s contributions and those of site visitors. Peaks in the volume of posts by the latter correspond with the topics being discussed – the first peak (in September) occurred when the blog focused on hyperactivity and food additives; others corresponded with discussions about milk, salt, sports nutrition, detoxing and new technologies and food.
User feedback
33 people responded to our feedback survey: a high proportion (45 per cent) rated the blog highly, but a similar number was unable to judge the blog, having never seen similar sites.
A large proportion of respondents (55 per cent) claimed to have visited the site at least once a week, suggesting a reasonable amount of traction; despite this, few posted comments on the blog (over 65 per cent had not). The main appeal for those visiting the site was to read other people’s comments; over 75 per cent of respondents claimed to do so while 63% said that they mainly looked at the blog author’s posts.
The site was praised for its success in presenting the human face of the FSA; the Chief Scientist’s relaxed style was commented on. Visitors appreciated the fact that he provided useful alerts to news stories. Some claimed that the site was hard to navigate around, with PDFs becoming hard to locate; others said that it could have done with more publicity and an increased level of interaction between the blog author and site visitors.
The site was informative for most users: over 55 per cent said that they understood the role of the FSA better and around 89 per cent said that they had learnt something about food related issues from reading it. Accordingly, over 78 per cent said that the blog was making a contribution to public engagement and efficacy – around 80 per cent said that they’d visit the site in the future and would recommend it to others.
Follow up
The blog may continue to be a (mainly) single-authored site or could provide a platform for different authors tackling specific themes, targeting distinct audiences. At present, it is public-facing, but there are hopes to use online technologies to engage specific groups of stakeholders within industry in the future.
This has been attempted in the past (see earlier phases of Digital Dialogues) and it is notable that the public-facing work of the Chief Scientist has been received more favourably than that designed to engage stakeholders. This suggests that the subjects being raised are able to generate public engagement (while being risky topics for industry stakeholders to engage with in a public setting). It reflects also the FSA’s success at public (and stakeholder) engagement offline.
