Edinburgh Community Food recently launched Edinburgh’s new food poverty network. ‘Menu for all’ will combine food and support access aims to give Edinburgh the scalable capacity to respond to need, build and coordinate capacity across the city, and provide accessible and reliable services of support to those most in need in times of crisis. Its …
Policy news
Programme for Government
Equality, Opportunity, and Community is the focus for the Scottish Government this year. The range of food-related actions in the programme include: plans to introduce measures that will extend eligibility to the Best Start Foods scheme; ongoing work towards the expansion of free school meals; taking forward actions within the Cash-First: Towards Ending the Need …
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Scottish Government Cash-First Fund
The Fund has now opened for applications and will remain open for five weeks – closing at 5pm on Friday 1 September 2023. The Guidance Note and Application Form are available online: https://www.gov.scot/publications/cash-first-fund-form-and-guidance/pages/overview/ We welcome applications from Partnerships made up of public sector and third sector organisations for collaborative work to improve urgent local access …
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Cash-first: Towards Ending the Need for Food Banks in Scotland: plan
A commitment to a ‘cash-first’ approach to tackling food insecurity is at the heart of a new Scottish Government plan to reduce the need for people to turn to food banks. The plan sets out nine actions which will be taken over the next three years to improve responses to food insecurity. The role of …
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New Public Health Nutrition Strategy from Food Standards Scotland
Food Standards Scotland (FSS) has published its new Public Health Nutrition Strategy which sets out their revised approach to addressing their objective of improving the diet of the population in Scotland. The new strategy highlights the importance of, and plans for, ongoing surveillance and data collection, as well as collaboration and partnership working. The strategy …
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Ending the need for food banks
In late October, the Scottish Government published its consultation analysis on the Ending the need for food banks draft plan. It received over 400 responses to the consultation that took place late 2021 and early 2022. Overall, respondents agreed with the approaches the draft plan has to ensure cash first approaches and pathways out of …
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Area of Work: Food poverty and access
Scottish Health Survey: Content Review
The Scottish Health Survey team have launched a review of its content and are encouraging all current and prospective users to take part. The review will assess the current content of the survey with a view to informing decisions for the survey from 2024 onwards. The aims of the review are: To understand how existing …
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Good Food Nation
The Scottish parliament has passed the final phase of the Good Food Nation Bill. The Scottish Government, local authorities and health boards will be required to develop Good Food Nation plans. A Commission will be set up to scrutinise progress. You can read news about the Good Food Nation Bill on the Scottish Government website
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How does community food work link into local policy?
The CFHS programme has been working with the Scottish Government and community food networks to map strategic and practical support for community food activities across Scotland. As part of this, we looked at how community food work fits into local government, Health and Social Care and other key local policies. We found community food activities …
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Scottish Health Survey
The Scottish Government has published the results of the 2022 Scottish Health Survey, providing information on the health and factors relating to health of people living in Scotland. Relevant findings include: – 32% of all adults were in the healthy weight category. – Around two-thirds of all adults (67%) were living with overweight (including obesity), with a higher prevalence …