Organisational structure
Our Chief Executive Officer leads the agency and works closely with the other members of a five-person Executive: Chief Scientist, General Manager Risk Assessment Branch, General Manager Food Standards (Canberra) Branch, General Manager Food Standards (Wellington) Branch, and General Manager Legal and Regulatory Affairs Branch.
The Food Standards Branch in Canberra is largely responsible for risk management in relation to food safety standards in the Food Standards Code, for coordinating Australia-wide responses to food incidents, and for nutrition and public health activities. The Branch also has carriage of corporate operations, consumer and social sciences, regulatory analysis and ICT. The corresponding Branch in Wellington is responsible for the development of labelling and compositional standards and for communication and enquiry services.
Our Risk Assessment Branch carries out the scientific evaluation of risks to human health through food, including the collection of compositional information, dietary modelling and evaluations of the effectiveness of food standards.
Our work is organised in the following Sections:
- Communication
- Food Composition, Evaluation and Modelling
- Food Safety
- Labelling and Information Standards
- Office of Legal Counsel and Secretariat
- Operations
- Planning and Capability
- Product Safety Standards
- Public Health Nutrition Standards
- Risk Assessment - Chemical Safety
- Risk Assessment - Microbiology
- Risk Assessment - Public Health Nutrition
- Scientific Strategy, International and Surveillance
In addition, we maintain a number of smaller units.
Senior management
The Executive’s role is to provide leadership, stewardship and control of the agency. It manages the implementation of the statutory functions of FSANZ in line with the strategic priorities set by the Board.
A Management Group, comprising Section Managers and the Executive, facilitates the two-way information between Sections and the Executive on our progress against strategic directions, day-to-day management and the coordination of section activities. Section Managers, and their General Managers, are responsible for supervising the activities of staff to ensure milestones are met, budgets and staffing resources are appropriately utilised and the Section outputs contribute effectively to our goals and outcomes.
During the year, five Senior Executive Staff received performance bonuses totalling $64,685 and 20 employees received performance payments totalling $183,137.
At 30 June 2009, our Executive team comprised:
Steve McCutcheon – Chief Executive Officer
As Chief Executive Officer, Mr McCutcheon is responsible to the FSANZ Board for the efficient administration of the agency and, in conjunction with the Board, for the corporate and strategic directions of FSANZ. He is also an ex officio member of the Board.
Dr Paul Brent – Chief Scientist
As Chief Scientist, Dr Brent has executive responsibility for FSANZ’s scientific work, data collection activities and development of collaborative relations with scientific institutions and the program that evaluates the impact of our standard setting activities. He also coordinates our scientific relations with international agencies, especially Codex.
Dr Andrew Bartholomaeus – General Manager
Dr Bartholomaeus is General Manager Risk Assessment, a role that gives him executive oversight of the agency’s risk assessment activities involving chemical, microbiological and nutritional analyses. He is also responsible for the agency’s work on food composition analysis, dietary modelling and evaluations.
Melanie Fisher – General Manager
As General Manager Food Standards (Canberra), Ms Fisher is responsible for the risk management functions associated with the development of food standards that primarily address health and safety matters, including standards for the primary industries, as well as for the agency’s social sciences, regulatory impact and economic analysis activities. In addition, she has senior management responsibility for corporate services, including a library, human resources and ICT functions and financial management. Ms Fisher is secretary to the Board’s Finance, Audit and Risk Management Committee.
Dean Stockwell – General Manager
Mr Stockwell is General Manager Food Standards (Wellington). He is responsible for the risk management functions associated with the development of food standards that address labelling and information matters, food contaminants, food composition, food additives and foods requiring pre-approval such as novel foods. He also has oversight of the agency’s communications function. Mr Stockwell is the senior FSANZ representative in New Zealand and is responsible for managing our relationships with consumers, industry, government and other stakeholders in that country.
John Fladun – General Manager
As General Manager Legal and Regulatory Affairs, Mr Fladun has senior management responsibility for FSANZ’s corporate governance arrangements. Mr Fladun also has oversight of the agency’s Office of Legal Counsel and is FSANZ’s General Counsel..
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