Designing sea bass fishing policy with lived experience and participation

Policy Lab worked with Defra and the Welsh Government to co-design a new sea bass Fisheries Management Plan shaped by the lived experience of fishers.

The project was selected as an example of co-design excellence and presented at the 2023 Westminster Food and Nutrition Forum as best practice in participatory policymaking.

Policy Lab partnered with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Welsh Government to support the development of a new Fisheries Management Plan (FMP) for sea bass. Managing sea bass fisheries requires balancing environmental sustainability with the economic and cultural importance of fishing, yet existing approaches struggled to reconcile competing perspectives across fragmented stakeholder groups.

Policy Lab presented the consolidated findings to Defra and the Welsh Government in January 2023. These findings directly informed the goals and actions of the sea bass FMP, published in December 2023 - including the establishment of the Bass Management Group as the first goal of the plan, providing the inclusive stakeholder engagement structure the project demonstrated was needed.

Drawing on the lived experience of fishers, enforcement officers and fishmongers, the approach built trust and surfaced areas of consensus and disagreement. It demonstrated how inclusive, mixed-methods engagement can support more robust, workable and collective environmental policy.

The project was selected as an example of co-design excellence and presented at the 2023 Westminster Food and Nutrition Forum as best practice in participatory policymaking.

Sea bass fishing plays a significant role in coastal communities, contributing to livelihoods, local economies and cultural identity. Pressure on sea bass stocks has intensified the need for careful management to ensure long-term environmental and economic sustainability.

This presents a complex policy challenge. Commercial fishers, recreational anglers, conservation organisations, regulators and scientists often hold competing priorities and perspectives. These differences are compounded by low levels of trust amongst some stakeholders and a perception that they are excluded from decision-making. As a result, existing regulatory approaches have struggled to build consensus or legitimacy across the system.

The introduction of the Fisheries Act 2020 created both a requirement and an opportunity to develop Fisheries Management Plans that are evidence-based and widely supported. Defra and the Welsh Government partnered with Policy Lab to test whether a broad co-design approach could navigate this complexity and develop a more inclusive way of making policy.

Policy Lab worked with the programme to address a central question:

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