Requesting an FSA speaker
Notes for external organisers on inviting FSA speakers to your events
The FSA is keen to take opportunities to explain its work and its policies to its stakeholders, including by accepting appropriate invitations to speak at external events. In order to make sure that we are making economic and efficient use of our senior staff’s time, we have reviewed our policy on responding to the large numbers of such requests we receive. This note outlines the process we would like you to follow in requesting an FSA speaker and sets out the criteria which we will apply in deciding whether to accept an invitation to speak.
How to request a speaker
We would ask you to submit your request using the speaker request form - please do not contact individual FSA staff directly. This enables us to consider your request in the context of other speaking engagements which we have already accepted on that subject. Please fill in the form as clearly and accurately as possible - the information will help us to help you. If you already have a speaker in mind for your invitation, please tell us, although we cannot guarantee that they will be able to accept.
Our guidelines
We will try to offer an appropriate speaker for your event. But due to high demand for FSA speakers, we cannot always provide someone. Especially given current pressures, we need to make good use of our senior staff’s time. So in deciding whether or not to accept a request, we will apply the following guidelines:
- Before accepting an invitation to speak, we consider if the FSA is already planning to speak on this subject, including at an FSA-organised event.
- We accept speaker requests from commercial event organisers only where the event would provide us with an opportunity to engage with key stakeholders that is not otherwise available.
- We support conferences and events of the major UK trade associations.
- When we can offer a speaker, we will usually offer no more then one per event.
- We accept a speaking request at an overseas location only where the audience and profile justify the time and cost and we can combine it with some other meetings while we are there.
Responding to your request
You will hear directly from our Speaker Request Coordinator whether or not we are able to provide a speaker. This will be our final decision (excepting special circumstances).
We will accept a complimentary place at the conference in return for speaking. FSA speakers should not be offered payment or gifts for their participation.
After the event
It would be useful to receive feedback on the event and our speaker – both from your delegate feedback and your own comments. This will help us to continue to make improvements for future similar events.
Want to know more?
If you have any queries relating to speaker requests, please contact Sita Hitchcox at speaker.requests@fsa.gov.uk.
