SUMMARY
Food policy has been an active area in the UK throughout 2025. Three of four UK nations having recently published food strategies and plans, with another in preparation, all within a changing geopolitical context. Against this backdrop, this working paper highlights key gaps and potential actions for fostering coherence within food strategies and governments in the UK based on an analysis of UK food strategies using a new tool, the Food Systems Policy Coherence (FSPC) Diagnostic tool. This tool, composed of two modules, aims to provide a simplified and standardised approach to measure policy coherence.
We applied Module 1 of the FSPC tool, which focuses on government structures and mechanisms to support coherence and covers five domains: Framework Documents; Political Commitment; Capacity and Implementation; Coordination Structures; Inclusivity, Stakeholder Engagement and Voice; and Monitoring and Accountability. For the UK strategies, Political Commitment was the best-performing domain, with all nations scoring highly, as a national food strategy or plan was in place, or in development, in each case. Capacity and Implementation, Coordinating Structures, and Monitoring and Accountability were the areas where most improvement is needed. Scores could be improved by including targets, key performance indicators, and detailed plans for monitoring progress and revising the food strategy.