Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022

Section 10: Requirements to produce plans

29. Section 10 imposes a duty on each relevant authority to publish a good food nation plan. A “relevant authority” is a health board, a local authority or a public authority specified by the Scottish Ministers in regulations.

30. Section 25 defines a health board in terms of section 2(1)(a) of the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1978, under which the area health boards were constituted for the purpose of exercising functions relating to the health service and making arrangements for the provision of healthcare services. The definition does not include special health boards constituted under section 2(1)(b) of the 1978 Act.

31. The term “local authority” is defined in schedule 1 of the Interpretation and Legislative Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 (which applies to the Act) as a council constituted under section 2 of the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994.

32. The Scottish Ministers may by regulations specify other public authorities to which the duty will apply. Section 25 defines “public authority” for this purpose. Any person who is a part of the Scottish Administration would constitute a public authority for the purposes of the Act. The definition also extends to include any public body (except the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body), public office or holder of such an office with functions (in each case) which relates only to matters which are not reserved under the Scotland Act to the UK Parliament or which has mixed functions (i.e. some which relate to reserved matters and some which relate to matters which are not reserved) .

33. The relevant authority must publish its good food nation plan within 12 months of this section coming into force. In the case of a public authority specified by the Scottish Ministers in regulations, the regulations which impose the duty for that authority to publish a good food nation plan will also specify the period by the end of which the plan must be published.

34. Subsections (4) to (6) set out what the plan must and may contain, and require the relevant authority, in determining the content of its plan, to have regard to the scope for food-related issues to affect the same outcomes which are relevant to the national good food nation plan (see paragraph 5 of these Notes).