The European Food Safety Authority has begun to roll out its reorganisation plan in a bid to manage its growing workload and increase efficiency.

The restructuring, which will take place throughout 2011 and be completed by 2012, aims to boost EFSA’s ability to deal with the assessment of “regulated substances”, including health claims and risk assessment, the authority said.

“The re-organisation is all about making EFSA more flexible and more able to respond to the increasing number of demands for its scientific advice. In this way, we can maintain the support we give to help Europe’s policy makers protect the health of European consumers,” EFSA’s executive director Catherine Geslain-Lanéelle commented.

Five directorates now make up EFSA: three scientific directorates, which support the work of the Scientific Committee and EFSA’s 10 scientific panels; a reshaped Communications Directorate and the Resources and Support Directorate. However, the EFSA said that it will centralise core administrative tasks under the Resources and Support Directorate in order to allow “scientific staff” to focus on “scientific work”.

EFSA is setting up an Applications Desk, to act as a first contact point for companies submitting applications for the evaluation of regulated substances, products and claims.

The Science Strategy and Coordination Directorate will coordinate the implementation of EFSA’s science strategy while the Resources and Support Directorate will bring together a number of functions previously spread across the Authority, such as meeting organisational support, procurement and financial management. A new Human Capital and Knowledge Management unit will develop strategies to encourage knowledge-sharing and training.

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“EFSA has grown rapidly since it was set up in 2002. It is right that we review the way we are structured to make sure we keep pace with the demands made of us, make optimal use of our resources and become even more effective in what we do,” Geslain-Lanéelle said.