Our people

Together we also play our part in helping to make food healthier and more sustainable for everyone.

Our people include statisticians, analysts, researchers, inspectors, enforcement experts, policy professionals, economists, veterinarians and more than 500 frontline staff, who work alongside our operational delivery partners to inspect abattoirs and other primary production sites.

As a non-ministerial government department, we are governed by a Board, rather than ministers. Our Board sets the overall strategic direction of our organisation.

Our Chief Executive is responsible for ensuring that FSA activities are carried out efficiently and effectively and is accountable to the Board for the exercise of their powers.

The Welsh and Northern Ireland Food Advisory Committees provide advice and insight to the Board relating to food safety and standards in their respective countries.

The Board is also guided by independent Scientific Advisory Committees, which draw on the views of more than 100 experts, ensuring that our guidance is always based on the best and most recent science and evidence.

Work culture at the FSA 

We offer fully flexible working arrangements and are location agnostic for non-frontline staff and a commitment to work-life balance because we believe this enables our people to work most effectively.

Flexible ways of working (including the option to be fully home-based) and digital tools that facilitate remote working mean we enjoy high levels of staff engagement and help us attract and retain the best talent from across the UK.

We started our flexible working programme in 2017. Two years later, we won an ‘Innovation in Flexible Working’ Award at the workingmums.co.uk Top Employer Awards – recognition of the fact that our flexible policies and practices are truly innovative and break new ground.

In 2022, we were accredited as a ‘mature’ Smarter Working department by the Government Property Agency. This means we ‘provided demonstrable evidence of how our people and culture, leadership, technology and workspaces are supporting, advocating and role modelling smarter ways of working’.

Please see our Working for us page for current vacancies at the FSA.