Crisis and Opportunity - The Report

THE REPORT

Foreword

Following the Foot and Mouth crisis that began in February 2001 which had such a devastating effect on the economy of the County of Devon and indeed the whole country, the County Council decided to organise an Inquiry in public into the outbreak. A Committee (Appendix 1) was set up of County and District Councillors under an independent Chairman (Professor Ian Mercer) to oversee the conduct of the Inquiry. Terms of Reference (Appendix 2) were adopted to guide the Inquiry Committee and anyone submitting evidence. The Inquiry's findings were to be forwarded to the three separate Government Inquiries (set up after the Devon decision); to support the County Council's bid for funding under the Devon Recovery Plan and to give an opportunity to the people of Devon who wanted to express their distress as well as their hopes for the future.

The Inquiry was widely publicised in the media and individuals and organisations were encouraged and assisted to make submissions either via the Internet or by letter. In the final analysis some 380 submissions were made to the Inquiry, with over 80 via the Internet. Of those submissions 28% were from farmers, 38% were from interested bodies and organisations and 34% were from businesses and individual members of the public.

Sitting in public, its proceedings continuously available on the Internet, the Committee questioned a balanced range of selected witnesses. Government NDPBs (Non Departmental Public Bodies) - English Nature, Environment, Countryside and Regional Development Agencies - were joined by Dartmoor and Exmoor National Park Authorities and powerful Non-Government Organisations - National Farmers' Union (NFU), Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), National Trust and Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). The Devon and Cornwall Constabulary, North and East Devon Health Authority, the County Council and the District Councils most affected also appeared. Devon Federations of Young Farmers' Clubs and Women's Institutes, Associations of Parish Councils and Veterinarians shared witness with individual parish clerks and chairmen, and vets. An Anglican priest, a Citizens' Advice Bureau officer, the Farm Crisis Network and a primary school headmaster and governor gave the Committee an insight into the psychological scenario in which they found themselves earlier this year. They extended the individual accounts of farmers and their families who were directly affected, those who were not and non-farming families. Tourist industry representatives and senior figures from each branch of the local media ensured that the whole spectrum of those involved in the outbreak and its aftermath had their chance to expand upon what they had written.

That the Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) declined the invitation to attend the hearings has been deplored by many. Ministers had in the end agreed to provide written answers to questions sent by the County Council (Appendix 6), and to supplementary questions which might then arise. The relevant documents are set out in Appendices 7 and 8 with the dates of their arrival in Devon. It seems fairer to DEFRA to print the 20th December response in its entirety in one place than to insert notes culled from it and relevant retorts at points throughout our own text (except in the case of Form D farmers). We welcome the effort made to provide 'Comments to Inquiries' produced in part we assume because of the Devon initiative and the receipt of our preliminary findings by DEFRA on 29th October. It is difficult in matters such as this to separate reality at the time (up to nine months ago) from retrospective thinking, but in either case our concern for the poverty of communication during the early weeks of the outbreak is confirmed by what we now read. Many statements in the DEFRA response invite further questions because they are vague, open ended or inaccurate (where we have been able to check them). We expect that a dialogue between the County Council and DEFRA will continue on these matters. There is otherwise little in the response that causes us to modify the findings we have made from the many submissions made to us.

The matter of contingency planning however does merit attention here and qualification in our chapter 2. DEFRA, having confirmed that MAFF did have a contingency plan, concedes that it was 'largely internal' and that the 'unprecedented' scale of the outbreak 'exceeded the ability of the resources available......to deal with it effectively'. We welcome the reference to a revised contingency plan which will be more inclusive, include local stakeholders and be informed by the 'Lessons Learned' inquiry. We trust that it will be informed by all Inquiries' results, and we feel that our preliminary findings in this respect are wholly vindicated and need only slight refinement now.

It is a nice judgement in retrospect whether cross-examination of Ministers not in office at the time, or of locally based civil servants who might claim they were not responsible for decisions made centrally, all in inevitably defensive mode, would have enhanced the public proceedings in Devon. Timing, and the time to be taken, could have meant that such an exercise was frustrating and unproductive, not least to those whose evidence might have been squeezed out. As many have claimed, a thorough national and formal public inquiry (able to summon ex-Ministers and civil servants at all levels) would be a more appropriate process for holding central Government players to account. But, even then, the fencing of legal advocates and defenders could prolong, perplex and confuse the issues until the truth was even more deeply buried than it is now. It is after all, already quite clear that the outbreak and the handling of the ensuing crisis was lamentable.

Preliminary findings and recommendations were produced in 14 days so that they could be forwarded to the Government's Policy Commission on the Future of Farming and Food whose chairman, Sir Don Curry, had asked for responses to his consultation by the 26th October. They were inevitably in an unpolished form given the time constraint (this Inquiry sat until the 12th October). In the end that set of Preliminary Findings, its timely appearance and economic format, were widely welcomed. It promised a final and definitive report and hence this document, which attempts to retain the same virtues.

Nevertheless in the short time we had to produce the original, some evidence was given less justice than it deserved, some things were omitted by chance and of course things have happened since we sat - not least the lifting of restrictions in Devon in December. One of the things we recommended - the mounting of an international dialogue about vaccination - may have begun, though preliminary exchanges suggest that UK ministers are justifying the policies pursued in early 2001 still and may not be prepared to open their minds sufficiently to achieve the global solutions necessary for meat production and farm welfare to be humanely reconciled. The pressure for that must be maintained.

We have divided this final report under three headings: Handling the Outbreak, Handling any Future Outbreak, and Looking to the Future - which last must involve the socio-economic well-being of those who live and work in the Devon countryside. However, even the first two chapters contain findings which have a bearing on the future of farming and food.

Many of our findings were not difficult to write down because to so many, who experienced or observed the events, actions and inaction of the spring and summer in Devon, they seem obvious. However, the whole area of human distress, and the efforts of those who strove to ameliorate it at the time and on the spot, is a continuing concern and about which reporting is a problem. The time and energy applied by priests, teachers and volunteers from organisations such as the Farm Crisis Network, to listening and counselling cannot be too highly praised. We wish to register gratitude for all their work on behalf of all Devonians.

Those who have written, those who attended and those who followed proceedings via the media and the Internet are all aware of the emotional atmosphere which surrounded the exposure of personal tragedy. There are also undoubtedly those who have not yet found it possible to express their feelings in writing or in person. What follows is necessarily for the present purpose as objective and pragmatic as we can make it, but none who have suffered should be in any doubt that their experience and their present plight is not diminished in any way by that. All that we have registered about the outbreak and its handling in 2001 is in some way aimed at reducing, if not removing, the risk that that experience might be repeated.

Ian Mercer
31 December 2001

Thanks are due to all my colleagues on the Committee of Inquiry and whose names are recorded in Appendix 1. They shared the emotional burden as well as extending the interrogation. We would all thank the Chief Executive of the County Council and his staff, who analysed the submissions and did everything necessary to ensure that the public hearings went as smoothly as they did. I wish to thank particularly Peter Doyle and Hilary Allison for their professional attention to the whole area of communications, Simon Timms for his work on Voices From Devon, Chris Williams for his design skills and especially Brian Wilkinson who has acted throughout well beyond the call of duty and in all respects was the Secretary of the Inquiry.

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© Devon County Council, 2002.