8 MANAGEMENT AND SUPERVISION OF MEASURES
TO CONTROL FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE
(26142)
14732/04
+ ADDs 1 and 2
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| Special Report No. 8/2004 by the Court of Auditors on the Commission's management and supervision of the measures to control foot and mouth disease and of related expenditure
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| Legal base | —
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| Deposited in Parliament |
23 November 2004 |
| Department | Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
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| Basis of consideration |
EM of 31 December 2004 |
| Previous Committee Report |
None |
| To be discussed in Council
| No date set |
| Committee's assessment | Politically important
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| Committee's decision | Cleared, but relevant to any future debate on agricultural matters
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Background
8.1 The completion of the single market, and the consequent free
movement of animals and agricultural products, made it necessary
to harmonise the relevant rules within the Community, including
the establishment of a common policy for preventing and controlling
foot and mouth disease (FMD). In particular, the fact that those
Member States, such as the UK, which practised preventive vaccination
were able to impose restrictions on animals from other Member
States led the Commission to conclude that a non-vaccination policy,
involving the eradication of any occurrence of the disease (by
the slaughter of infected animals, the imposition of movement
restrictions, the disposal of carcases, and the disinfection of
contaminated premises) should be adopted. As a result, a ban
on preventive vaccination, and a prohibition on the import into
the Community of vaccinated animals, was introduced in 1990, leaving
vaccination available only as an emergency measure when there
was a danger of a large-scale spread of the disease.
8.2 Following the adoption of this strategy, there were a number
of outbreaks of the disease within the Community during the 1990s,
but these were relatively limited. However, the scale[28]
of the outbreak in the UK[29]
in 2001, and the level of expenditure involved (not least by the
Community),[30] led the
Court of Auditors to carry out a review, in order to establish
whether:
- the analytical method followed by the Commission in determining
the strategy for preventing and controlling FMD was sufficiently
up-to-date;
- the Commission, on the basis of its checks and
appraisals, had presented adaptations to the Community strategy
to the Council; and
- the systems introduced by the Commission for
reimbursing Member States' expenditure were adequate, rapid and
non-discriminatory.
The current document
8.3 The Court's findings —
which are based to a significant degree on visits it paid to the
four Member States affected by the 2001 outbreak —
are set out in this report, which is in four parts.
COMMISSION ACTION BEFORE THE CRISIS
8.4 The Court notes that the assessment carried out
by the Commission to identify the best strategy to adopt following
the opening of the single market had looked at three different
scenarios for the scale of potential outbreaks, the intermediate
one of these assuming 13 epidemics involving 20 outbreaks over
the ten year period from 1993 to 2002. Also, its main emphasis
was on the budgetary and agricultural costs, and the wider social
and environmental considerations were not taken into account.
The report says that the relatively low level of outbreaks prior
to 2001 did not highlight the need to check the viability of the
arrangements which had been put in place, but that a number of
the risks associated with the virus (including stocking densities,
the number of livestock movements, and the number of abattoirs)
had in the meantime increased, leading the Food and Agriculture
Organisation to warn that Europe could at any time face "devastating"
animal disease outbreaks.
8.5 The report notes that the Commission's supervision
of veterinary measures normally involves (i) verifying that Community
legislation has been incorporated into national law, and (ii)
on-site inspections carried out by its Health and Veterinary Office
(HVO). It suggests that, prior to 2001, the latter should have
focussed on measures relating to FMD, including veterinary checks
at frontiers, checks on animal feed and the drawing up by Member
States of contingency plans and of systems for identifying and
tracking animal movements. However, it says that, whilst verification
of transposition of legislation by Member States is carried out
systematically, tests for compliance are carried out only when
an HVO inspection takes place. As a result, the arrangements
in all the Member States affected by the FMD outbreak (apart from
the Netherlands) contained significant omissions, which had a
bearing on the spread of the disease.
8.6 On the other hand, the Court considers that the
veterinary checks at the Community's borders were well supervised,
and that action was taken quickly by Member States to remedy any
deficiencies, though it also comments that Community regulations
at the time of the crisis contained a number of shortcomings,
notably as regards the carrying of foodstuffs by travellers. The
Court also notes that the HVO identified —
mainly after the FMD crisis —
gaps in Member States' checks
on the use of catering waste for animal feed, despite this having
been associated with an outbreak of swine fever in 1997/98, and
that this had a particular relevance to the FMD outbreak in the
UK, where waste fed to pigs on the holding where the crisis originated
had not been adequately treated.
8.7 The Court considered the contingency plans drawn
up by Member States in the event of an FMD outbreak. It observes
that the Commission had laid down the minimum criteria which these
were supposed to meet, but that these did not cover a number of
important areas, such as the personnel and resources needed (and
how they were to be mobilised), the procedures for recording the
number and value of animals slaughtered, the system for recruiting
and remunerating valuers, and use of the system for compensating
farmers. In particular, the Commission guidelines only required
Member States to have sufficient veterinary capability to deal
with ten outbreaks of the disease at any one time, and did not
ask them to provide for an increase. The Court concludes that
Member States' plans —
including that of the UK —
had not provided adequately for a worst-case scenario, and could
not be adapted to a crisis which was unprecedented. It also suggests
that, although the Commission responded rapidly during the crisis,
good groundwork would have made it possible to avoid some of the
problems encountered in 2001.
8.8 Other points noted by the Court in this part
of its report are that:
- despite the steps taken to
introduce the individual registration of cattle, difficulties
arose over the tracing of animals moved between Member States,
and that in addition the identification of sheep and pigs was
at the time compulsory only for batches of animals (and, even
then, displayed certain shortcomings);
- Member States were allowed to exempt from the
list of those farms on their territory keeping animals small holdings
where the farmer concerned does not claim support premiums;
- there were deficiencies in the system (ANIMO)
enabling veterinary authorities in different Member States to
exchange information on animal movements; in particular, the
model message drawn up under the system omitted any reference
to the farm of origin or to the transit points used when a consignment
moves from one Member State to another; and
- although Community legislation requires the immediate
imposition of restrictions on animal movements within 10 kilometres
of an infected farm, this measure alone could not contain the
spread of the disease in the UK in 2001, leading to the imposition
of a nationwide ban on movements three days after the epidemic
had been officially confirmed: the Commission, for its part,
then adopted a Decision (2001/190/EC) banning movements of animals
in the other Member States.
COMMISSION ACTION DURING THE CRISIS
8.9 The Court observes that Commission staff were
available 24 hours a day throughout the crisis, and that the Commission
was able to take the necessary emergency measures promptly. It
also notes that many of the Commission's decisions in the veterinary
area were considered by the Member States to have been "timely
and appropriate", and that, during the crisis itself, the
HVO carried out inspections at the opportune time, even though
this meant postponing other planned visits to later dates. In
addition, normal procedures were speeded up.
8.10 However, the Court also noted some deficiencies
in the control arrangements in the UK, which it says could not
be dealt with promptly, because of the need for a fundamental
revision of the measures in question by the Commission and the
Member States. The three main shortcomings were:
A significant shortage of Government veterinarians
The Court notes that, although the Council had instituted
a series of disease controls which qualified for Community funding,
this did not extend to non-endemic diseases, such as FMD. It
also points out that the UK had less than half the number of Government
veterinarian per million cattle, sheep and pigs as compared with
the average in the other Member States, and that this —
together with a delay in calling up additional manpower —
meant that the manpower deployed lagged behind the increase in
the number of infected premises, and significantly reduced the
effectiveness of the measures needed to control the epidemic.
The effectiveness of those control arrangements
which relied upon prompt notification
The Court notes the fundamental importance of the
immediate notification of FMD if it is to be eradicated rapidly,
but points out that, although the success of any control measures
therefore relies substantially on farmers themselves noting the
condition of their livestock, the relevant Community regulations
did not require Member States to involve them in disease control,
consult them over contingency plans, provide them with information
about the nature of the different diseases and the action to be
taken, or encourage them to notify disease quickly. The Court
also notes that, in the UK and France, farmers who did not notify
the disease were taken to court and fined, but that they were
still entitled to full compensation because the Community provisions
did not make payment conditional upon compliance with essential
control measures.
The report also draws attention to the delay in detecting
the disease within the UK, and to the fact that, where disease
is confirmed, Community rules allow the Member State concerned
24 hours in which to notify the Commission and other Member States,
thus increasing the risk of it spreading. However, it also notes
that, in 2001, the UK alerted the Commission within five hours
of the disease being confirmed, thus demonstrating that the period
laid down in the regulations could be shortened.
Unacceptable delays in identifying suspected cases
and in subsequently dealing with them
In order to be entitled to Community reimbursement,
Member States must immediately slaughter infected animals, but
Community regulations simply allow, and do not require, them to
slaughter animals in secondary outbreaks as soon as clinical symptoms
are detected. Nor do they require animals to be culled before
they have been valued. As a result, the rate of culling depended
upon the practice in the Member State and the veterinary resources
available.
COMMISSION ACTION CONCERNING THE REIMBURSEMENT SYSTEM.
8.11 The Court notes that, before the FMD crisis,
it had already made a number of recommendations to the Commission,
which had not been taken up. It then identifies the following
specific aspects of the reimbursement system, in the light of
experience during the epidemic.
8.12 First, although the relevant Council Directive
gives the Commission the task of adopting the necessary implementing
measures regarding the Community's financial contribution to eradicating
FMD, these are as yet incomplete. Moreover, although they make
such reimbursement conditional upon adequate compensation being
paid to livestock farmers, the meaning of that expression is not
specified, a situation which the Court notes contrasts with that
when cattle are slaughtered due to BSE.
8.13 Secondly, this leads to inequalities in the
treatment of farmers according to where they are located and/or
the method of slaughter chosen. Thus:
- in three of the Member States
affected in 2001, compensation was not paid to farmers for indirect
losses incurred after their animals had been slaughtered, whereas
in France it had been (though such payments did not subsequently
qualify for Community reimbursement);
- there was a lack of uniformity in the valuations
carried out, and in the compensation actually paid; and
- in some cases, farmers received for slaughtered
animals both the premium payments payable under the Community's
market support measures and compensation which had been based
upon a sale price which included any such payments still due,
thereby allowing them in effect to receive a double premium.[31]
8.14 Lastly, the other points highlighted in this
section of the Court's report are the lack of any clear direction
to Member States on the supporting documents needed if their expenditure
was to receive Community reimbursement; confusion over the extent
of reimbursement for compensation paid to farmers who had not
complied with the necessary statutory provisions on notification
and movement restrictions; delays in the Commission reimbursing
Member States for the expenditure they incurred; a difference
in the 60% reimbursement rate for pigs slaughtered for FMD, as
opposed to the 50% applicable for swine fever; and the absence
of any requirement on farmers generally to contribute to Community
eradication costs, even though many may have benefited from higher
market prices.
COMMISSION MANAGEMENT AFTER THE CRISIS
8.15 The Court notes a number of measures taken by
the Commission since the crisis. In the veterinary field, these
include:
- putting forward emergency vaccination
as an important means of controlling an epidemic;
- extending the Community requirements for contingency
plans, and requiring Member States to review these every five
years;
- setting out criteria enabling an outbreak of
FMD on a holding to be established;
- requiring Member States to introduce systems
of penalties where national provisions adopted in order to implement
Community directives are infringed;
- reinforcing checks on travellers entering the
Community;
- the adoption of a general ban on the use of kitchen
waste and swill; and
- the adoption of measures permitting the individual
identification of sheep.
However, the report also draws attention to the continuing
absence so far of improved incentives for farmers to report diseases
quickly (or steps to make payment of compensation conditional
on this), of any reduction in the 24 hour period allowed for Member
States to notify the Commission of the first outbreak, and of
any requirement to slaughter an infected animal immediately, before
the completion of valuation procedures. In particular, it highlights
the fact that the Commission study which led to the adoption of
the overall Community approach to FMD has yet to be updated.
8.16 The Court concludes its report with three main
recommendations, namely that:
- outside crisis periods, there
should regular evaluation of the prevention and control arrangements
and increased supervision of their implementation;
- a study is needed of ways of involving farmers
more closely in the rapid notification of disease and compliance
with movement restrictions; and
- there should be clarification of the financial
framework applicable to epidemics of animal disease, combined
with maximum reduction of the financial risks to the Community
budget.
The Government's view
8.17 In his Explanatory Memorandum of 31 December
2004, the Minister for Nature Conservation and Fisheries at the
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Ben Bradshaw)
notes that, in its response, the Commission welcomed the Court's
recognition that it acted swiftly to help contain the 2001 FMD
epidemic, but that it is sceptical as to whether more preparedness,
planning or different Community rules could have made a significant
difference to the course of the epidemic. The Commission argues
that there were plans and systems in place in 2001, but that the
central problem was the scale of the epidemic, which stretched
the veterinary services of some of the affected Member States
to their limit.
8.18 He also notes that the Commission is in the
process of revising the rules governing the Community's Emergency
Veterinary Fund, and that it hopes to present a formal proposal
on this as soon as possible, but that it believes that the degree
of harmonisation of national compensation systems called for by
the Court is neither realistic nor desirable. In particular, it
says that the market value of animals can vary significantly from
country to country, so that setting Community-level compensation
rates would run the risk of over-compensating some farmers and
under-compensating others. The Commission also points out that
current Community legislation sets the price for compensation
at the market value in the relevant country on the day before
the outbreak of the disease.
8.19 The Minister says that the UK also welcomes
the report and considers some of the conclusions and recommendations
helpful. He adds that, although no immediate policy implications
arise from the report, the UK will continue to work with the Commission
and other Member States to ensure that the lessons learned are
applied. He also points out that the Government's handling of
the FMD outbreak in 2001 has been the subject of two "very
thorough independent inquiries",[32]
and the National Audit Office also undertook a report,[33]
to which the Government responded.
8.20 The remainder of the Minister's Explanatory
Memorandum deals with those aspects of the Court's report which
touch upon the arrangements in the UK. He comments, as follows:
- The UK's priority and the Community's
obligation was to stamp out the disease in the shortest possible
time, which was recognised as being the best value for money for
the UK taxpayer, the Community and the rural and wider economy.
The UK believes that this was achieved.
- The exceptional nature of the 2001 outbreak in
the UK meant that exceptional measures had to be taken, involving
the deployment of very large resources over a long period of time.
He notes that the Court and the Commission have acknowledged that
this was the case.
- The UK acknowledges that, although its contingency
plans in 2001 fully compled with the Commission's recommendations
and Community law, they were insufficient to deal with the unprecedented
size and scale of the epidemic. The UK has now developed extensive
and detailed contingency plans, which are far more comprehensive
than is required by the Community. These are reviewed annually,
and presented to Parliament and to the Welsh Assembly.
- The UK will be interested to see what proposals
the Commission brings forward to address the Court's recommendation
that ways of involving farmers more closely in rapid notification
of disease and compliance with movement restrictions should be
studied.
- In response to the Court's recommendation that
the financial framework applicable to epidemics of animal disease
should be clarified, combined with maximum reduction of the Community
budget, the Commission has recently produced a draft decision
"for the Community financing of emergency action and measures
to combat FMD". The Minister notes that, following the 2001
outbreak, the UK has continually registered concern that the Decision
(90/424/EEC) dealing with the financing for exotic disease outbreaks
was unclear, and was being applied across Member States inconsistently.
The UK therefore supports simplification and transparency, and
equal treatment for Member States being reimbursed in the event
of a future disease outbreak.
- The outbreak in 2001 was the first major one
in Great Britain for 33 years, and the need to take urgent action
to control and eradicate the disease took precedence. However,
the Government accepts that sufficiently robust financial controls
were not put in place immediately, and it also acknowledges that
this lack of administrative controls justified a reduction, in
accordance with the Commission's own Guidelines, in the calculation
of the reimbursement due.
- The Court's comments that a nationwide movement
ban was not introduced in the UK until the third day of the epidemic
has the benefit of hindsight, and the Government believes that
its initial response was both rapid and in accordance with the
UK's obligations under Community law. In particular, when it became
apparent that the underlying epidemiological evidence justified
more widespread movement restrictions than those initially imposed
around the first confirmed case, the UK introduced these immediately,
and more generally acted appropriately and proportionately in
response to the emerging epidemiological picture.
- As regards the Court's comments about a lack
of Government veterinarians, the UK had permanent veterinary staff
occupying key positions in the management of the work in Disease
Emergency Control Centres. The main difficulties in the early
stages of this unprecedented outbreak were caused by a lack of
experienced veterinary managers to organise key activities rather
than a shortage of veterinarians per se.
- The UK acknowledges the Court's view that that
there were unacceptable delays in slaughtering, but points out
that these delays were reduced within the first few months of
the outbreak, and that, from mid-April 2001 the 24-hour report-to-slaughter
target was achieved on more than half of infected premises. That
said, difficulties occurred for four main reasons — initial
shortage of resources (including veterinarians, valuers, slaughtermen
and equipment), the sheer size of the outbreak (with on average
three times more animals needing to be culled on each premises
in 2001 than in 1967-68), occasional delays arising as a result
of inconclusive laboratory results and an initial requirement
that veterinarians should check all livestock before carrying
out a detailed clinical examination of the affected animals, and
logistical factors (including the time needed to round up large
flocks of sheep, and the need for the co-ordinated arrival of
valuers, slaughtermen and disposal teams).
- The guidance and instructions on the operational
aspects of slaughter have been revised in light of the 2001 outbreak,
and are subject to an ongoing review process. The UK has also
launched a comprehensive training package for all those engaged
in the humane culling of animals, covering all aspects of emergency
and disease control situations.
- The UK agrees with the Court's recommendation
that alternative methods of funding compensation for FMD should
be considered, and is actively looking at this issue. Proposals
for an animal disease levy are being developed, and will be the
subject of public consultation as soon as practicable.
- Although the Court observed that farmers directly
affected by FMD had no income while their premises were being
cleansed and disinfected, this does not take into account the
fact that they were given the option of being paid to undertake
this work themselves (and that the majority did so). In addition,
compensation for indirect losses is constrained by the Community's
state aid rules.
- The UK does not agree with the Court's suggestion
that farmers were paid slaughter premium unnecessarily. In particular,
the level of compensation paid to farmers in the UK for compulsorily
slaughtered animals did not include slaughter premium.
Conclusion
8.21 The foot-and-mouth outbreak in 2001 was clearly
an event of major importance both for the Community as a whole
and more particularly, of course, for the UK. We therefore welcome
the fact that the Court of Auditors has produced this extensive
report, which we are drawing to the attention of the House at
some length, together with the very full reply provided by the
Government. However, as the Government has noted, the events
of 2001 have been the subject of at least two enquiries, in addition
to which there was an investigation carried out by the National
Audit Office. Also, the impact of the outbreak was considered
by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee in 2001-02.[34]
In view of this, we are clearing the document, but we regard it
as relevant to any future debate on agricultural matters.
28 There were 2,034 outbreaks, extending to 10,124
farms, leading to the slaughter of some four million animals,
with a further two million animals being slaughtered because of
the welfare problems which arose when they were subject to movement
restrictions. Back
29
There were also 26 outbreaks in the Netherlands, two in France,
and one in Ireland. Back
30
According to the Court, the total expenditure declared by the
four Member States was €2,693 million on which Community
reimbursement of €1,616 million was claimed. Back
31
Although the Court recognises that the amount of any such double
payment is difficult to establish, it estimates this amounted
in the UK to around £10 million. Back
32
The first of these, headed by Dr Iain Anderson, was commissioned
to look into the lessons to be learned from the outbreak and the
way in which the Government should handle any future major animal
disease outbreak, whilst the second, conducted on behalf of the
Royal Society, considered questions relating to the transmission,
prevention and control of epidemic outbreaks of infectious disease
in livestock. Back
33
"The 2001 outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease", Report
by the Comptroller and Auditor General, 14 June 2002. Back
34
First Report of 2001-02, The Impact of Foot and Mouth Disease,
HC 323 (16 January 2002). Back
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