UK Government regulation of health risk has traditionally relied heavily on advisory committees where experts in the field provide advice to Ministers and officials on risks to health based almost exclusively on scientific evidence. Although this approach may have been acceptable in the early days of regulation when many of the risks being considered were easily identifiable and the benefits of regulation fairly obvious.

However it has become increasingly clear that it is much more difficult to justify when dealing with risks which appear to be much smaller and for which the scientific evidence contains high levels of uncertainty.

Also rapid increases in the availability of information means that stakeholders and the general public are much more aware of risk issues and have very valid perspectives on both risk assessment and risk management which need to be taken into account. This has become very clear in recent years through a number of high profile "scares" involving risk issues. This paper looks at the way in which the UK Government's thinking is developing and outlines some of the approaches that have been adopted and others that are being considered to improve both the transparency of risk analysis procedures and to ensure that effective communication of issues takes place between experts, officials and stakeholders. The paper focuses particularly on work carried out in the Department of Health, the changing role of expert committees, development of an independent Food Standards Agency and other interdepartmental initiatives.