EHJ January 2005, pages 8-11

The proposed draft animal welfare bill is the biggest overhaul of animal welfare laws in over a century but what will it mean for local authorities? Nick Warburton investigates

When you scan through the pages of the RSPCA's website and come face-to-face with harrowing images of badly treated animals, it's hard to believe that the UK has a worldwide reputation as a nation of animal lovers. For a country that introduced the first parliamentary legislation for animal welfare in the world, it's slightly baffling that people can get away scot-free for such cruelty.

The problem is that much of the UK's legislation, which relates to non-farmed animals, was drafted in the Victorian era. And while amendments have been made since then, the legislation does not provide animals with standards of welfare that are appropriate for modern times.

Animal welfare campaigners have rightly complained that under existing legislation, effective action cannot be taken where a non-farmed animal, although not currently suffering, is being kept in such a way that suffering will probably occur at some future point in time.

A duty of care on owners to ensure that all animals are cared for in accordance with best animal management practices is long overdue. The decision to extend a duty to promote animal welfare, currently only present in farmed animal legislation, was widely welcomed as one of the main proposals in the draft animal welfare bill, when it was put out for consultation by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in July 2004. After months of extensive and intensive debate, the draft bill was announced in the Queen's Speech in November and could become law as early as next year.

As a measure to improve standards of animal welfare and increase penalties for abuse, the proposed bill is particularly relevant to environmental health practitioners, both in terms of the statutory duties it will impose through the extension of licensing into areas such as boarding establishments and possibly pet fairs but also in terms of the additional powers it will give EHPs to clamp down on ill treatment and neglect through the duty of care.

This duty would require owners to provide a suitable environment for captive animals, provide adequate food and water, provide protection from pain, injury and disease and provide conditions that allow animals to exhibit normal behaviour. Under the new law, local authorities will be given the power of entry and seizure if owners fail to meet these requirements.

Proper enforcement of the duty of care remains a major sticking point for animal welfare campaigners, however - a contention that is not lost on Lou Leather, chair of the pet advisory committee and an environmental health expert on animal welfare. "If we are actually going to have a duty of care, there's going to be a huge demand on enforcement requirements," he says.

A vociferous supporter of the new welfare offence, Mr Leather believes more thought needs to be given to the practicalities of enforcing the legislation. "At the minute, there are some authorities that don't have much of a requirement to be doing animal welfare," he explains. "They don't have any pet shops and boarding establishments. So if someone turns up in their area for the first time, they don't necessarily know how to deal with it. Therefore at the moment, it's not well done.

"With the new prospective act, there is a need to make sure enforcement is in place before the act arrives," he continues, "or at least to say, there will be some consideration as to how this will be done before it arrives."

Mr Leather argues that simply throwing money at the situation will not guarantee that effective enforcement is carried out. He says that while resources are vitally important, a regional structure should also be considered from which local authorities could draw on experts in the field to carry out inspections on their behalf "if they feel short in the area of expertise".

He also thinks there should be input from the trade and from campaign groups in terms of funding training and shaping the regional structure. "If the trade doesn't think enforcement is done equally, they should be prepared to think about how they might contribute to helping local authorities and themselves and put a fair structure in place," he argues.

At the heart of the problem is the fact that many local authorities either do not have the staff and/or the expertise to carry out enforcement effectively in the first place. "I am in a very fortunate position that I have an ex-veterinary nurse and an ex-RSPCA inspector as my two animal welfare officers," explains Mark Berry, principal EHO at Stockton Council. "They are both officers who can do full investigations, do an authoritative interview, do taped interviews and statements - basically see an investigation through from the start through to court appearances."

Stockton Council has a long track record of taking prosecutions for domestic/companion animals, under the Protection of the Animals Act 1911, but as Mr Berry readily concedes they are something of a lone voice among local authorities. He suspects that one reason for this may be because other authorities are unaware that they can prosecute under the act. He also says the cost of taking prosecutions is a major deterrent.

In a recent case involving two dogs and three cats (EHN, 19 November 2004, page 7), the council became embroiled in a prosecution that took 14 months to resolve. The cost of kennelling the animals from the minute they were seized to the magistrates' ruling was nearly £3,500. But even though the prosecution proved successful, the council did not get its full costs awarded because of the financial status of the defendant. "That is one of the big, big problems for local authorities - the cost of keeping those animals that you seize until you finally get to court," says Mr Berry. "It's not just cruelty cases. As a local authority, you rarely get your full costs awarded." Mr Berry would like to see a fast-track system to speed up the time it takes to bring a case to court and to minimise the necessary kennelling costs.

Another major issue for local authorities is changes in licensing conditions in areas such as boarding establishments and sanctuaries, livery yards and pet fairs. While the finer details regarding the phasing-in of regulations will be decided at a later date, EHPs need to be aware that more licensing will inevitably result in more work.

The CIEH is broadly supportive of the government's plans if it means the law will be clarified (EHJ, August 2002, pages 228-231). This is particularly important with the sale of pets from temporary sales and auctions, areas where the RSPCA would prefer to see a ban unless there is "tightly drafted secondary legislation that only allows events where adequate welfare really can be ensured".

In July 2001, the CIEH produced guidance for local authorities discouraging them from issuing licences under the Pet Animals Act 1951 for the sale of animals in a public place. While it recognises that there are "grey areas in the law" in terms of certain types of events, the CIEH argues that only genuine member only events - whether or not they involve the sale of animals - are lawful under the act. All other events should not be licensed. The CIEH issued guidance on this very issue to chief officers and directors of environment health in November.

Defra has made it clear that it wants pet fairs to continue as long as they are regulated. CIEH policy officer, Andrew Griffiths, supports a clarification in the law, "so that local authorities know where they stand". He argues that getting the licensing requirements right on pet fairs is vitally important because it will reduce the inconsistencies around the country.

"The trick will be to establish standards that will be enforceable," says Phil Easteal, environmental health team leader at Thurrock Council. Mr Easteal, who is one of the speakers at this month's CIEH-run conference on the draft animal welfare bill, adds that the standards must be relevant to the species. He also says they will have to meet certain levels of hygiene practice, accommodation and general management of care as well as cover issues such as handling and transportation to and from fairs and one-day sales.

Last month, the House of Commons' Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) published its pre-legislative scrutiny report on the bill. The report is fairly critical of the draft bill, and makes over 100 recommendations for changes.

On the issue of pet fairs, the report claims that Defra has "proceeded straight to the question of asking how pet fairs should be regulated, without first asking whether they should be clearly legalised". EFRA is calling for a consultation on whether the fairs should be made "unequivocally legal" before Defra drafts regulations that would repeal the 1951 act and introduce a licensing regime for pet fairs in its place.

As Defra ponders over the report's contents, animal welfare continues to be a low priority issue for many local authorities, Mr Griffiths concludes, "It's now up to Defra to go out and win the hearts and minds of local authorities to see it as a priority."

The EFRA report is available at: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/cmenvfru/52/52i.pdf