Last updated on 11 September 2009

Stakeholder Reputation Research

In order to achieve its objectives, the Food Standards Agency, of which the Meat Hygiene Service is an executive Agency, needs to understand the views of its stakeholders and must work successfully with a large number of stakeholders with different perspectives and often strong and opposing views about different aspects of the Agency’s work.

Between 2003 and 2006 the Agency commissioned research on an annual basis to better understand the views of key opinion leaders i.e. senior level political, media, corporate and non-governmental organisations/think tank/academic stakeholders. The results were generally positive, although the Agency scored less well on aspects related to giving advice on diet and nutrition and appearing to balance the interests of all stakeholders. In addition, some felt the Agency gave them too little time at the policy consultation process and some corporate stakeholders raised concerns about independence in relation to evidence based decision making.

The Agency decided to conduct a new audit in 2009 in order to continue to measure and benchmark how stakeholders view it in terms of trust, credibility and communication. In addition, the audit was designed to help the Agency identify areas where it could improve how it conducts its business and be used to measure future stakeholder strategy. More specifically, the key objectives of the research were to:

  • monitor trends in stakeholders’ perceptions of how the Agency currently goes about its business
  • understand in more detail, stakeholder perceptions of how the Agency engages and communicates during policy development and implementation
  • identify areas of concern for stakeholders regarding how the Agency conducts its business and proposals for addressing these
  • examine the perceptions stakeholders have of the FSA in relation to particular policy areas
  • identify any changes in perceptions of the Agency since the audit was last conducted in 2006

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