Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Intervention Board : BSE, the cost of a crisis report / by the Comptroller and Auditor General.

  • National Audit Office
Date:
1998
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Intervention Board : BSE, the cost of a crisis report / by the Comptroller and Auditor General. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    78/130 (page 72)
    ta @ there must have been no case of BSE confirmed in the herd (or in animals originating from the herd) and the herd may not include animals from herds in which BSE has been confirmed; and @ animals in the herd must not have received any feed containing meat and bone meal during the previous seven years. EXti The Ministry consulted the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee who were content that these rules would ensure that the risk of BSE in such herds was extremely low and that the scheme offered alternative assurance to that provided by the general thirty month age restriction. The Ministry also discussed the proposed rules with the European Commission and presented them to the Standing Veterinary Committee prior to the introduction of the scheme on 1 September 1996. The statutory instrument which forms the legal basis of the scheme sets out the conditions of eligibility (Statutory Instrument 1996 number 2097). Es} The administration costs of the scheme are recovered by charges to participating farmers. For the first year of operation, to 1 September 1997, these consisted of a registration charge for the herd of £35 and a charge of £3.35 per animal. Both are payable annually. Farmers are also required to double tag each animal with its official ear number. The charges are designed to recover the Ministry’s costs of administering the scheme, including inspecting herds twice a year to ensure compliance with the scheme rules. In addition, inspectors make two visits a year to each herd to ensure the integrity of records held by the Ministry. EX7] As at December 1997, some 940 applications for registration had been received. However, many of these were found to be ineligible. Of the 203 applications which passed initial checks, only 77 chose to register, covering 4187 animals. The cost of the scheme in 1996-97 was £1 million, the bulk of which were start-up costs, and is expected to be considerably lower in 1997-98. Export Certified Herd Scheme EX=] The Ministry has also drawn up proposals for an Export Certified Herd Scheme. The aim of the scheme would be to secure the lifting of the export ban for meat and meat products from herds which have had no association with BSE for eight years. Such herds would be required to meet a number of criteria similar to those set for the Beef Assurance scheme.