4A different approach - education and enforcement
52.A common theme throughout our inquiry was the need for a fundamental shift towards a more holistic approach to dog control that prioritised prevention through education, responsible ownership, and early intervention. Defra said it recognised dog control required “an element of prevention”, and highlighted its work on microchipping, updating guidance, and dialogue with the police.111 Witnesses from animal welfare charities felt existing efforts fell far short of what was required, however, and called for the Government to develop a new approach.112
53.We focused on the four areas that witnesses identified as being crucial to effective prevention, namely improvements to education; changes to enforcement practices; new legislation and powers; and learning lessons from abroad. Our inquiry did not attempt to develop exhaustive proposals for an alternative dog control model; this would need to be explored in the wide-ranging Government review we have called for. Our aim was rather to draw the Government’s attention to issues of particular concern, and suggest measures that could be implemented either immediately or as part of a wider overhaul of dog control strategy.
Education
54.Our evidence was clear that human factors played a prominent role prior to the majority of dog attacks, and that any systematic attempt to reduce the number of incidents needed to place a greater emphasis on education.113 Hospital data indicate that children under nine are statistically at most risk of being bitten,114 and are more likely to suffer serious and disfiguring injuries on the face and head.115 There is however no requirement for schools to make use of the readily available materials on dog safety.116 Neither does routine national information provided to new parents include specific information on staying safe around dogs.117
55.Witnesses told us that targeted initiatives to educate children on safe human-dog interactions were therefore key.118 Some advocated adding this information to mandatory childhood education.119 The RSPCA said this would avoid the “piecemeal and sometimes duplicated approach” currently being delivered by the charity sector.120
56.Defra told us however that the national curriculum was “already broad enough to allow other subjects to be included”, and that the Secretary of State for Education had announced in March 2018 that he would make no further changes to the national curriculum during the remainder of this Parliament (2022).121
57.Young children are at most risk of dog attacks, and many suffer horrific injuries. Better childhood education on staying safe around dogs is needed to reduce the high number of avoidable incidents. A consistent approach is needed across the country to avoid the current post-code lottery of intervention. Defra should commission a childhood education plan from experts and charities to determine the most effective education measures and how these could be implemented consistently across the country. The Department should then support the roll-out of this plan.
58.Dogs Trust highlighted that wider education of dog owners and the general public was also crucial to reducing incidents.122 Defra said it was making “efforts to encourage more responsible dog ownership and target the owners of dogs through advice”,123 but witnesses felt this was not enough.124 The BVA advocated national awareness campaigns and much greater provision of standardised information resources to promote safe interactions between dogs and owners, family members, and the general public.125
59.We heard that stricter regulation of the dog-training and behaviour industry would be important to ensuring that any efforts to encourage attendance at educational courses produced the desired results.126 David Ryan told us that currently
anyone can set themselves up as a dog-trainer [...] There are some horrendous examples of dogs being made worse by bad training practices”.127
Dogs Trust similarly argued that regulation of training was “absolutely fundamental.128
60.Education initiatives would likely have to contend with ‘hard to reach’ dog owners. David Ryan raised concerns over the difficulties in reaching this demographic and the “complacency” among some owners:
Many people believe they know all there is to know and that they are doing it right. Many people are wrong; otherwise there would not be so many incidents.129
61.There were differing views on how education of dog owners should be best achieved. Battersea Dogs & Cats Home argued against proposals to enforce education through dog licensing, maintaining that such licenses would be an ineffective “tax on dog owners”.130 The organisation highlighted instead the benefits of collaborative initiatives between charities and local authorities.131
62.Others argued however that an ‘owner education scheme’ would have to be compulsory, otherwise conscientious owners would attend but the main target groups would simply opt out.132 One of the options discussed involved the introduction of compulsory third party liability insurance for dog owners, which would be linked to education or training classes.133 The Communication Workers Union said compulsory third party liability insurance–which could be as low as 50p per week–was desirable in any case as many attack victims were currently inadequately compensated.134 The police acknowledged the potential benefits of both mandatory training and insurance, but highlighted that the current legislative framework lacked sufficient sanctions to ensure such requirements could be adequately enforced.135
63.Greater awareness of responsible ownership and dog behaviour would reduce attack incidents. It would also help alleviate the financial burden on the health services and enforcement agencies that have to deal with the consequences of attacks. Defra should introduce a targeted awareness campaign to inform dog owners and the general public about responsible ownership and safe interactions. Defra should further develop proposals to help local enforcement bodies increase engagement among hard to reach demographics. This should involve a thorough assessment of the merits of mandatory third party liability insurance and training classes for dog owners.
64.It is important that any efforts to encourage attendance at educational training courses are not undermined by bad practices in the private industry. As part of the review we have called for, the Government should investigate the impact of poor dog training practices in the private industry, and the merits of stricter regulations to ensure all trainers are properly accredited according to a standardised framework.
Enforcement practices
65.Both local authorities and the police have responsibility for dog control. Our evidence was clear that reductions to attack rates and improvements to animal welfare would require changes to local enforcement practices, and police and court processes.
Effective local enforcement
66.Our inquiries into local enforcement indicated that individual instances of good practice needed to be scaled up across the country. The Local Environmental Awareness on Dogs (LEAD) initiative provided a good example.136 This local police-led initiative had substantially reduced dog bites by bringing together a range of enforcement and stakeholder bodies.137 Although the initiative was widely praised, we heard that there was no appropriate national framework to ensure this and similar approaches were replicated across the country, and that the “current postcode lottery” of collaborative intervention would therefore continue.138
67.Both the police and Local Government Association (LGA) acknowledged that local-level collaboration could be improved, but highlighted the significant obstacles presented by resource constraints and competing priorities.139 The LGA said cutbacks had substantially eroded the capacity of councils to take a proactive approach to dog control, and that there was also a “lack of clarity” from central government to support joint working.140
68.Dogs Trust raised additional concerns that many dog incidents went unrecorded by local authorities and police, preventing authorities from building a case log of evidence that could be used to trigger early interventions.141 The wider lack of data recorded on the circumstances surrounding dog bites was also seen as problematic, as it hampered research into potential trigger factors that could be used to inform effective prevention strategies.142
69.The Kennel Club believed that the current system offered little incentive to collect useful data on dog bites, which were simply catalogued numerically rather than being treated as a public health issue meriting further information logs.143 These points were echoed by the RSPCA and BVA, who called for a centralised reporting database with a mandatory requirement for information on bite incidences to be recorded.144
70.We questioned the Minister on how the Government could better support local enforcement. Lord Gardiner told us that he recognised collaborative projects “as a positive way forward”, but that “a lot of the remedies of this have to be at local level”.145 The Minister acknowledged that there was no budget to roll out collaborative schemes across the country.146 Defra’s Deputy Director Animal Welfare and Exotic Disease Control noted that better data on dog attacks would be welcome.147
71.Whilst we appreciate the challenging financial landscape, it is clear that more support is needed for local-level collaboration. We are also concerned that joint working is overly reliant on the dedication of individual officers and enforcement bodies. The Government should commit more resources to supporting collaborative dog control initiatives, and facilitate the upscaling of successful pilot projects across the country. Initially it would seem sensible to concentrate resources in areas with the highest rates of dog attacks.
72.Better data is needed to support bite prevention strategies. Defra should engage with the relevant Departments, local authorities and police forces to ensure local staff record all incidents appropriately. We further recommend that the Government introduces a centralised database to record information on dog bites, level of severity, and the circumstances of the incident. This is key to improving understanding of the most effective ways to protect the public.
Police and court processes
73.Our evidence highlighted a range of issues with Section 1 case processing times, the Interim Exemption Scheme, and legal penalties. Processing times for dog cases, and the kennelling costs, were described by Deputy Chief Constable Pritchard as “excessive”.148 The police noted that some cases took over 18 months to resolve, and called for timescales to be placed on court proceedings to speed matters up.149 The RSPCA agreed with the need for swifter processing and supported wider take-up of practices operated in London and Manchester, where police forces had arranged designated days for dog case hearings with the local courts.150
Longest stay in kennel by an individual dog in days
Source BBC FOI151
74.Our evidence also highlighted the lack of consistency in the application of the Interim Exemption Scheme (IES). To avoid prolonged kennelling, the IES–also known as ‘dog bail’–allows police to return a suspected Section 1 dog to its owners during the exemption process.152 Battersea Dogs & Cats Home described the bail process as a “postcode lottery”, with many police forces refusing to grant it.153
75.Similarly, the sanctions handed down by courts were condemned as being improperly or inconsistently implemented.154 The Communication Workers Union said existing sanctions were sufficient in theory, but that there was a “a huge disparity” in the penalties handed out. The organisation called for greater consistency across cases and for the full range of sentencing powers to be utilised to deter and punish offenders.155
76.We asked Lord Gardiner if he had any concerns about the police and court enforcement processes. He said that “if there were areas that the police had problems with, I would want to know of them”,156 and agreed that “in court cases, expedition in all matters is the optimum”.157
77.Prolonged kennelling, lengthy court processing times and inconsistent sentencing are not conducive to effective dog control. Defra should work with the Home Office and Ministry of Justice to develop proposals for speeding up Section 1 case processing times. This could involve encouraging framework agreements between local courts and enforcement bodies to ensure cases are heard within pre-agreed timescales. The Government should also review the use of the Interim Exemption Scheme across the country and issue targeted guidance to forces that are not employing it consistently. We further recommend that Defra engages with the Ministry of Justice to ensure sentencing guidelines are being properly observed and that consistently robust sanctions are being applied across the country.
Rural policing
78.The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) told us that more action was needed to tackle livestock worrying, which remained a serious concern for rural communities.158 We could not form a complete assessment of the scale and impact of livestock attacks, as they are not required to be formally recorded. According to estimates from SheepWatch UK, up to 15,000 sheep were killed in 2016.159 NFU Mutual estimated that the direct impacts of livestock attacks cost the agricultural industry £1.6 million per year.160 Deputy Chief Constable Pritchard told us owners were not present in the majority of cases, often because the dog had escaped.161
79.Guy Smith, Deputy President of the NFU, highlighted that education was key to tackling this issue:
You talk to dog walkers and say, “’Why did you let that animal off the lead?’ They say, ‘Well, it is not one of those dangerous dogs. It is a Labrador’. They think it has gone and played with livestock.162
80.He further noted that, because the majority of attacks occurred without the owner present, it was crucial to get the message through to people who might not even be aware of their dog’s actions. He suggested that tougher penalties for repeat offenders and an increased rate of court prosecution and fines would be beneficial, as these would increase deterrence and likely reach the target audience through local media coverage.163 He also suggested the Government could do more to support initiatives to raise awareness of appropriate dog handling in rural areas.164
81.Defra should work closely with the National Police Chiefs’ Council to support closer collaboration across rural police forces, and encourage robust action to be taken against the owners of dogs involved in livestock worrying.
112 Qq86–89
113 Q61
114 NHS Digital, Provisional Monthly Hospital Episode Statistics for Admitted Patient Care, Outpatients and Accident and Emergency Data - April 2012, 9 August 2012
115 Australian Veterinary Association, Dangerous dogs – a sensible solution, p.3
118 Q47
119 RSPCA (DDL0229), British Veterinary Association and British Small Animal Veterinary Association (DDL0235)
122 Q35
124 Q20
126 Q57
127 Q57
128 Q57
130 Q98
133 Q57
134 Q220
135 Qq163, 164, 185, 195
144 British Veterinary Association and British Small Animal Veterinary Association (DDL0235) p.1, RSPCA (DDL0229) para 26
145 Qq326–328
146 Q329
147 Q254
148 Q116
150 Q95
151 BBC, The Dangerous Dogs Act 25 years on: How effective has it been?, 13 August 2016
153 Q76
156 Q321
157 Q323
158 Q210
159 SheepWatch UK, Understanding the law
160 NFU Mutual, How to prevent dog attacks on livestock
161 Q121
162 Q230
163 Qq227–229
164 Q233
Published: 17 October 2018