Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160-179)
Monday 9 June 2003
MR ELLIOT
MORLEY, MR
JIM SCUDAMORE
AND MR
MARTIN ATKINSON
Q160 Mr Drew: What are the attractions
of working for the SVS rather than working in private practice,
because of course you want this movement backwards and forwards?
Mr Atkinson: I would reiterate
what the Minister said. A large number of private vets came and
got a close-hand view of what we were doing during the foot and
mouth disease outbreak and since then we have had a tremendous
response to any recruitment advertising that we have done and
we have placed some really high quality people.
Q161 Mr Drew: So you need some more
crises?
Mr Atkinson: I think it is true
to say that most people go to veterinary college with an image
of not quite Rolf Harris and Trude Mostue but certainly with an
image of doing clinical work, of treating sick animals and making
them better. Very few people go to veterinary college with the
idea of working for government or becoming a civil servant and
therefore it is not really in the frames of reference of most
people who go through veterinary college. There needs to be some
stimulus to get them to consider a career in the public sector.
We do not pay huge salaries which offer an incentive to people
to join us but what we do have is a breadth of work and a very
interesting category of work that people do not normally get in
practice but people in practice are not aware of that unless something
draw it to their attention, and what happened in foot and mouth
disease was that they did get involved and get to appreciate what
we do and found it attractive.
Mr Morley: You have to be a bit
careful, Martin, because the conspiracy theorists will be saying
that we started foot and mouth just to boost the SVS recruitment.
Q162 Mr Drew: Do not worry: that
has been put to me on many occasions.
Mr Morley: I have heard all the
conspiracy theories. I could write a book on them. In terms of
some people who have been interested in the SVS, the SVS is very
much a team working based thing and I think sometimes you can
be working on your own in some practices and for those people
who like to work as a team the SVS offers that. There is also
this issue, which is very serious, that we are talking about national
surveillance, we are talking about combating serious economic
and welfare threats to the livestock and indeed wildlife of this
country, and it is an important job and I think many people have
recognised just how important and how fulfilling it can be and
that has helped with the recruitment.
Q163 Mr Drew: This question is not
tongue in cheek but a very serious issue. How much longer can
we have SVS reporting to Defra, the Meat Hygiene Service reporting
to the Department of Health, environmental health officers reporting
to a district council, trading standards officers reporting to
a county council, if you have got two-tier authorities, and then
Health and Safety which may be called in? This is a bit of a muddle,
is it not?
Mr Morley: I think there is a
logic in this. It is important that you do have proper co-ordination
and co-operation but the MHS vets report to the Food Standards
Agency for very sound reasons and it is part of the concept of
separating food safety from what could be seen as a department
which is also sponsoring the food industry, so that you separate
that completely so that food safety is then accountable to the
Department of Health. I think there are very good and sound arguments
for doing that and it does not mean to say that you cannot have
co-ordination and proper links in with this and of course the
environmental health departments in departments of local authorities
are of course distributed right across the whole country and have
that local involvement and are involved in local enforcement,
of course, which would be very difficult to do from the centre.
Again, I think there are very good arguments for having that devolved
to local government. I do not think we should underestimate the
value of local government in terms of policy delivery and animal
welfare and safety for consumers. Although there are those differences
in relation to accountability and structure, I personally think
there are good reasons for that.
Q164 Mr Drew: I accept what you say
and I presume that this is regularly reviewed by Government.
Mr Morley: Everything comes up
for review at periodic intervals, generally at five-yearly intervals.
Q165 Mr Drew: My concern would be
that if you bring in the RSPCA as well how many people are potentially
going on to farms, which is always an issue when you talk to farmers,
but also how many people, given that sort of complexity, can get
at the other end of those that keep livestock, which we have already
alluded to, that is, keeping one or two animals? The danger is
that with five agencies it is very easy for none of those agencies
ever to be brought into looking at someone who is mistreating
their pet sheep. Where do we begin to draw the line because this
is quite an issue?
Mr Morley: You are absolutely
right and, as I mentioned to the Committee, this is one of the
things that we are giving some current thought to in relation
to our general approach on animal health and welfare strategies.
It is a difficult one. When we have had outbreaks in the past
the SVS has been quite successful, working with local authorities,
in tracking down people who have had the odd pig or the odd sheep
because we need to know this. In the classical swine fever outbreak
there were a number of people who had some backyard pigs and it
was absolutely essential that we knew where they were and that
was done. It is challenging and I think there are issues that
we need to consider about how we improve that. Probably the simplistic
answer is local knowledge and that if you have local knowledge
people tend to know who has what and where you may find it, but
even the most effective local authority in the country is not
going to know where every single backyard pig or sheep is.
Q166 Mr Wiggin: We have just been
talking about the number of vets. Earlier on Mr Atkinson said
that he was having trouble with tuberculin tests. This concerned
me because obviously tuberculosis spreads very quickly and I wondered
whether he had enough people or, if he does not, what steps are
being taken about that. What is the real story?
Mr Atkinson: Most of the tuberculin
testing is done by LVIs in practice. Perhaps I ought to record
that over the last year when we had a backlog of testing built
up the local veterinary practitioners did a tremendous job in
boosting their efforts and dealing with a large number of those
additional tests. Dealing with tuberculosis and the consequences
of breakdown takes up quite a high proportion of the time of the
SVS. It is true that we need to look at the priorities for our
activities, as Jim said earlier. We cannot do everything that
everybody wants us to do. Most of the things that we do somebody
places a high value on and places a high priority on and we work
closely with Jim and our policy colleagues in trying to determine
the priorities for putting resources in. There are one or two
offices which at the minute with the increasing tuberculosis load
are under a fair bit of pressure. I do not think the right answer
is to go out and get more vets, which is perhaps the context in
the question is often posed. It is worth remembering that I have
230-odd front line field vets but I have a thousand other staff
in the State Veterinary Service, technical assistants, administrative
people, and actually a lot of the constraints are on that level
of staff, not necessarily on the veterinary side.
Mr Morley: That was one of the
reasons, you may recall, that we put forward the idea of lay testers
and there has been an extension of lay staff in a number of veterinary
procedures. That is one area that we want to explore with the
RCVS.
Q167 Mr Wiggin: So where would you
put the tuberculin testing in your list of priorities? You were
talking about having a list of priorities.
Mr Atkinson: It is not so much
the tuberculin testing, the majority of which, as I say, is done
by the local practices. It is dealing with the consequences of
that which causes the pressure—getting large numbers of
reactors valued, slaughtered and what-not. There is a lot of processing
involved there which is perhaps not done by veterinary staff but
done by my administrative staff. Tuberculosis is one of the highest
priorities but I would say that essentially we agree the priorities
with our policy customers and essentially it is in discussion
with Jim and Ministers that the overall priorities are established.
Protecting human health comes at the top of our list, so things
like dealing with TSE cases, feed surveillance and that sort of
thing is at the top of our list, closely followed by ITB.
Q168 Mr Wiggin: One of the things
you have just said there was quite alarming. You called Jim a
policy customer. The real customers, I think, are all the people.
The next group of customers presumably are the farmers rather
than the policy makers. How will you turn to Jim and his team
and say, "Look: I am sorry; we have not finished dealing
with the tuberculin test problem. We are still dealing with the
slaughter backlog", and all the other points you made? Who
is pulling the strings here? That is what I am getting at.
Mr Morley: The priorities in relation
to how we allocate resources are matters in the end for Ministers
with the advice of the Chief Veterinary Officer.
Q169 Chairman: How much does SVS
cost a year?
Mr Atkinson: My administrative
running cost budget for the year that we have just started is
£46 million and on top of that I have the budget which pays
for the LVI fees of a further £22 million, off the top of
my head.
Q170 Chairman: So state spending
on veterinary activity on this basis is £68 million. When
the wheel falls off, like foot and mouth, and we rack up a four
billion pound bill, do you think £46 million to four billion
is a proper relationship in trying to minimise risk in this area?
Everything you have said has pointed to a more sophisticated strategy
to improve animal welfare, to improve bio-security, to minimise
the risk that another disease could have a devastating effect
on whatever part of the UK livestock industry it might choose
to visit upon. If we were taking out household policies and we
were looking at a risk expenditure you might think this was a
very low premium to cover what can sometimes be an enormous risk.
Mr Morley: We recognise that and
that is exactly why we have launched the Animal Health and Welfare
Strategy. We recognise that in terms of preventative spending
in relation to the SVS then of course you can be protecting the
country from huge additional costs and problems and the industry
itself. I know you were not saying this but it is important to
stress that of course it is not just the responsibility of the
SVS. It is a shared responsibility within the whole livestock
sector.
Q171 Chairman: It is quite an interesting
question that we have as a state-run responsibility a veterinary
service. You could say, "We, the Government, will lay down
a set of requirements for you, the industry, to follow—disease
surveillance, self-reporting, analysis, all the rest of it",
and just come out of the veterinary business. It is interesting
that you do put £68 million into providing a quality State
Veterinary Service.
Mr Morley: Yes, that is sometimes
forgotten, you are quite right. I think you are always going to
have to have a state involvement because, of course, as Martin
pointed out, there are a number of statutory obligations which
have to be carried out in relation to the livestock sector. Whether
it is LVI inspections for animal transport or whether it is a
range of other disease issues you do need a state body to ensure
that those statutory functions are carried out. A lot of that
is actually carried out by the private sector which is supervised
by the SVS so in terms of it core, it is a comparatively modest
core because it involves a great deal of the private sector but,
of course, it has to be paid for and that is where a lot of that
funding comes from. You are right in that there has to be a partnership
in terms of minimising disease risk and it cannot all fall on
the SVS or indeed the state.
Q172 Chairman: Let me ask you a straight
question before I move on to one or two points of detail about
LVI recruitment. Do you do any kind of risk analysis where you
compare the resource to deal with risk with the value of the risk
you are trying to protect?
Mr Morley: Certainly we carried
out risk analysis in relation to importation of disease risk,
that was carried out in some detail. It is quite complex but certainly
we have done that.
Q173 Chairman: What was the outcome
of that in the context of veterinary expenditure? Did it say "about
right", "not enough", "we want more"?
Mr Morley: It did not quite present
it in that way but what the outcome was of the study that was
done—this was on importation—was that while there
were risks of importation, and they tried to evaluate those, there
were much larger risks within the livestock sector, much larger
risks. In that sense you do have to be able to address that, of
course, both in terms of our responsibilities from Government,
which we accept, but also in relation to the industry as well.
Q174 Chairman: The reason I am driving
at that is I am interested in the resources we have available
because it is a circular subject. I was going to ask about whether
you had any difficulties in recruiting LVIs? Have you got enough
of them to do the job that SVS is supervising through LVIs within
the country? If we do not have enough vets with the right experience
therefore we cannot have a pool of people from which to recruit
and if we have not got enough business we just go round and round
in circles.
Mr Morley: I understand what you
are saying. I will bring Jim in in a moment. What I was saying
the LVI recruitments are, generally speaking, overall not aware
there is a major problem. As Martin has mentioned where there
are areas of pressure, such as certain parts of the country where
there is big demand for TB testing, for example, then there can
be some problems of availability. Also you get the odd problems,
I remember at Dover, in relation to live animal exports because
live animal exports are very controversial, as you are aware.
The exporters found difficulty in recruiting LVIs to do the inspections.
They are some odd pressure points but on recruitment, generally,
it is not too bad. Jim, do you want to say a word?
Mr Scudamore: I just want to clarify
a number of points, if I may. We talk about the SVS costing £68
million, there are a lot of other agencies that do similar work.
So, for example, the local authority do the enforcement work on
behalf of the SVS and that all has to be costed in as well. We
have just developed a framework agreement with local authorities
regarding enforcement services, particularly with reference to
consistency and a risk based approach because I think one of the
issues is if you have got 20 jobs to do you need to work out what
the risk of not doing one of the jobs will be and then balance
that against the resource you have got. We are trying to develop
that as a risk based approach to the work that is and is not done.
On the risk work, we have done a risk assessment on import controls
and, interestingly, that showed that if we doubled the resource
input we will put a huge amount of extra resource and it will
not make a lot of difference to the risk. Interestingly, you can
use the risk based approach to assess if you do a lot more work
will it make much difference to the risk and sometimes it might
not. We are doing a lot of risk work, also, on the movement controls.
We had the 20 day controls, we have got now the six day controls,
all of which will be a combination of risk and cost benefit for
the benefits of the controls as against not having the controls.
I think there is a lot of work going on in those areas. Also we
have the Veterinary Laboratory Agency which is a surveillance
network as well as the SVS so that needs to be built into the
costing as well. When you add all these in there is quite a lot
more money spent on veterinary work in this country in terms of
surveillance and controlling disease.
Q175 Chairman: On LVIs, have you
got enough?
Mr Atkinson: By and large, yes,
I think the survey the Minister referred to at the beginning of
the discussion we are having this afternoon—the survey we
carried out in the animal health offices—was related to
any problems they were having in finding LVIs to do the work that
we needed to do. What that recorded was that although the number
of practices might be reducing we were not having difficulty in
getting the LVI services delivered, except in one or two areas.
Q176 Chairman: When a veterinary
practitioner takes on the role of the LVI, does he get paid personally
or his practice?
Mr Atkinson: The practice, for
the work that we pay for, of course, as we say we do not pay for
all LVI work.
Q177 Chairman: I appreciate that.
In terms of a way of bolstering private practice then in some
areas LVI work is rather important?
Mr Morley: I would think it is
very important to some.
Q178 Chairman: The British Cattle
Veterinary Association proposed a partnership between the SVS
and specific farm veterinary practices in order to address this
question of supply. Is that something you have looked at?
Mr Atkinson: Yes, it is. The British
Cattle Veterinary Association is a sub-division of the British
Veterinary Association and influential members of the BCVA are
participating in the various working groups we have got at the
moment looking at potential models for how we might do it. The
BCVA are on record with that and speak very eloquently about it
at all sorts of BVA gatherings. I have to say it is not universally
supported by other sectors so there is still a selling job. It
is a proposal which has some positive features which certainly
need considering.
Q179 Mr Lazarowicz: How does the
SVS actually go about communicating with the private vets? What
is the main method of communication for you? Have you got a website
where they can find out about information that is available?
Mr Morley: There is a website
and there is also direct communication direct to practices as
well.
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