Frequently asked questions

Find answers to your questions about The Good Food Nation Toolkit.

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The Good Food Nation Planning Toolkit supports Relevant Authorities (and their planning partners) by outlining, and providing a curated set of resources to support, the process, people and associated tasks, milestones and timelines, involved in developing Local Good Food Nation (GFN) Plans.

The toolkit acts as a curated information repository to support the work of planning, and publishing, Local Good Food Nation Plans. It provides a detailed timeline of the process (and associated tasks and milestones) required for developing Local Good Food Nation Plans. These resources are broken down and arranged by key stages and associated tasks and milestones.

This Good Food Nation Planning Toolkit is primarily aimed at those leading, and working, on Local Good Food Nation planning, including officials from the 46 Scottish Relevant Authorities (32 Local Authorities and 14 territorial Health Boards), responsible for preparing, drafting, and publishing the first Local Good Food Nation Plans as per the legislative requirement outlined in the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022.

We also expect that other public bodies and officials, civil society organisations (including coalitions/alliances), community groups/organisations, networks (business/regional development/enterprise/tourism), professional representative bodies (including those representing Relevant Authorities) and other interested parties will also find this Good Food Nation Planning Toolkit, and the resources contained within, helpful to them in contributing to, and influencing, Local Good Food Nation planning throughout Scotland.

The Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022 is framework legislation that requires Scottish Ministers to prepare and publish a National Good Food Nation Plan. Relevant Authorities (Scotland’s 32 Local Authorities and 14 territorial Health Boards) also have a new responsibility to produce Local Good Food Nation Plans.

For more information, please see our GFN 101 Briefing and the Understand Section of the Toolkit.

The Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022 requires Scottish Ministers and Relevant Authorities to prepare and publish Good Food Nation plans.

‘Relevant Authorities’ are defined in this legislation, as per the original wording, as: territorial Scottish Health Boards and Scottish Local Authorities. There is a clause that allows for Scottish Ministers, in the future, to specify that other public bodies can be included but though this has not been exercised for the first round of Good Food Nation planning.

As of September 2026, Relevant Authorities, for the first round of Local Good Food Nation planning, are the 14 Territorial Scottish Health Boards and 32 Scottish Local Authorities.

For more information, see the Understand Section of the Toolkit

Sections 10 to 18 set out the requirements of the Act for Relevant Authorities. Section 10 must be enacted for the provisions related to Relevant Authorities to come into force. As of September 2026, these requirements are not yet in force.

All 32 Scottish Local Authorities and 14 territorial Scottish Health Boards were formally written to in March 2026 and issued with 12 months advance notice of Section 10 coming into force on 1st April 2027 and that accordingly the first set of Local Good Food Nation plans would be published by the 1st April 2028.

For more in-depth information, see the Understand Section of the Toolkit.

  • monitoring progress in achieving the outcomes in the Good Food Nation Plans;
  • monitoring the effectiveness of the plans in addressing food-related issues;
  • providing advice to Scottish Ministers and relevant authorities to support progress and improve the effectiveness of their plans;
  • making formal recommendations on action to be taken in relation to the plans.

Four commissioners were appointed between Aug 2024 and June 2025. The Chair is Dennis Overton (Aug 2024) with Professor Emilie Combat (June 2025), Graeme Jack (June 2025), and Professor Mary Brennan (June 2025). Currently (as of Sept 2026), there is one full-time staff member, the Chief Executive Jayne Jones who took up her post on Monday 5th January 2026).

The commission hosted its official launch event on Thursday 19th March and is working on setting up the organisation, developing its first corporate strategic plan, agreeing its first formal framework agreement with the Scottish Government, undertaking scrutiny of the first National Good Food Nation Plan, and, where appropriate to its remit, replying to consultations and/or requests for advice and expertise on allied proposed and/or existing primary and secondary legislation, actions plans and policy initiatives.

The Scottish Food Commission (see FAQ ‘Who are the Scottish Food Commission?’) have statutory responsibility for oversight and scrutiny of the National and Local Good Nation Plans.

This is not intended to be a one-off planning exercise, the legislation describes a long-term project embedded which will be monitored, scrutinised and overseen by the Scottish Food Commission.

The reporting period is two years from the date of publication of the Relevant Authority’s first Good Food Nation Plan and every subsequent two years after that. As soon as practicable after the end of each reporting period, Relevant Authorities must publish a Good Food Nation Plan Progress Report.

The revision period is before the end of the 5-year period from the date of publication of the first plan and each subsequent period of 5 years. When deciding whether or not to revise the Plan the Relevant Authority must have regard to any recommendations made by the Scottish Food Commission.

See Writing a Good Food Nation plan: a brief guide for relevant authorities for further explanation (including a helpful infographic) from the Scottish Government on the timeframe of plan development and how reporting, reviewing and revising are interconnected. Scottish Minsters are working to the same timeframes when they review and revise the National Good Food Nation Plan.

In its guide on writing a Good Food Nation Plan for Relevant Authorities, the Scottish Government states that: ‘A statutory requirement to have regard to a particular thing means that you must consider it when exercising the function in question. Where there is a requirement to have regard to a specified list of things, you must consider each one.’

See here for more details: Writing a Good Food Nation plan: a brief guide for relevant authorities