Scotland’s FMD action plan is slated

Government’s contingency proposals come in for stinging criticism

By Joe Watson

Published:

Scotland’s foot-and-mouth contingency plan has been condemned as not fit for purpose in a scathing report by independent consultants.

Analytic Red tear apart the existing Scottish Government document, saying it falls short of the aspirations that it specifies.

The firm’s biggest hammer blow is the stinging criticism that the plan does not meet the fundamental principles for a national contingency plan for the strategic management of a disease outbreak.

The firm says the existing plan lacks:

The appropriate content and structure for dealing with disease.

The required capacity to deal with the scale and pattern of an outbreak.

The proven ability to deliver an immediate response to all aspects if disease breaks out.

The necessary policy and operational responses that would be needed immediately in a major disease outbreak.

The condemnation is a significant blow as the livestock sector had believed the foot-and-mouth plan to have been fully reviewed and updated by the former Liberal Democrat-Labour controlled Scottish Executive in the wake of the 2001 disease outbreak that cost Scotland hundreds of millions of pounds.

The latest report was ordered by Professor Jim Scudamore as part of his inquiry into the lessons to be learned from the bungling incompetence in England that caused last year’s foot-and-mouth outbreak in Surrey and the escape of the virus from the UK Government run Pirbright research site.

His report when it was published last month made 55 recommendations, key among which was renegotiating the budgetary arrangements between Scotland and the UK to prevent a repeat of the problems that emerged last year.

Analytic Red’s report – now published on the government’s website – recommends Scotland’s contingency plan is rewritten as a separate national document that regards any foot-and-mouth outbreak as a “crisis” and which focuses on using national emergency teams as part of the response.

The firm calls on the government to take full account of industry views in rewriting the plan and to ensure that any new document fully recognises the wider economic impacts of all the disease control options that might be taken.

The consultants add: “While our findings are radical, ours is not a counsel of despair.”

The Scottish Government admitted to the Press and Journal a review of the contingency plan was now under way and that a revised document – taking account of the views in all recent reports – would be published later this year.

A spokeswoman said Prof Scudamore had highlighted that both the Scottish Government and industry were generally satisfied with the response to last year’s English outbreak.

ANM Group chief executive Brian Pack said the report was a remarkable document, adding that he was pleased the government had accepted such a critical analysis of the plan.