Animal Health and Welfare Team

Please provide information regarding the Animal Health and Welfare team within Trading Standards. 

1) The number of premises holding livestock in the county.

We have records of 21,990 livestock holdings.

2) The number of animal inspectors within the department (including full and part time)

We have 7.8 full time equivalent (FTE) animal inspectors carrying out the majority of our animal health and welfare work.

3) The total number of animal health and welfare complaints between 2007 – 2025 (ideally delivered in a yearly split).

4) The total number of farms visited between 2007 – 2025 (ideally delivered in a yearly split).

5) The total number of visits to other non-farm species between 2007-2025 and what these species were. This refers to other animal species that the Animal Health and Welfare team may cover under the Animal Health Act 1981 and the Animal Welfare Act 2006 that might not be technically classified as livestock. For example this may be equines who are signed out of the foodchain, camelids (sometimes included or not) or illegally imported dogs under the rabies act. Essentially anything that is beyond cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and poultry.

Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 makes provision for public authorities to refuse requests for information where the cost of compliance would exceed the appropriate limit, which for local government is set at £450 or 18 hours of officer time.

To locate and the retrieve this information from our database would require a manual review of 3,500 separate entries. This would take 6 minutes per entry, which is 350 hours and in excess of the appropriate cost limit.

This response acts as a Refusal Notice for this part of your request.

Under the Act, there is a duty to provide advice and assistance as to how a request can be refined to fit within the appropriate limit. Unfortunately, due to the way the data is held, this is not possible for this request.

6) The total number of investigations opened.

There are 69 entries for investigations opened against livestock farms.

7) The number of initiated prosecutions (prosecution proceedings begun and dropped) and completed prosecution cases under:

The Animal Welfare Act 2006 between 2007 – 2025

Initiated prosecutions: 37

Completed prosecutions: 6

The Animal Health Act 1961 between 2007-2025.

There is not an Animal Act 1961. The following information relates to the Animal Act 1981.

Initiated prosecutions: 24

Completed prosecutions: 1

8)  Additional data of these prosecutions (both intended and completed) requested are:
The charge/s initially made against the premise/persons/company.

Charges under Section 4(1), 9(1), 9 (2) (a) (b) (e), 32 (1) (2), 34 (9) and paragraph 16(a) of Schedule 2,of the Animal Welfare Act 2006.

Charges under Section 73 (a) (b) and 73 (1) (b) of the Animal Health Act 1981.

Of these charge/s, were there any that were dropped or dismissed and if so, why

4 charges were withdrawn.

The reasons why the charges were withdrawn is information that is exempt from disclosure under section 42 (1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (Legal Professional Privilege.)

Devon County Council can confirm the requested information is held. However, the information was created for the purpose of providing legal advice and discussing matters connected to the conduct and progression of the cases and disclosure would reveal confidential legal information that could prejudice the authority’s position in future cases.

The Council has considered the public interest in releasing this information and recognises there is a public interest in openness and transparency. However, there is a stronger public interest in safeguarding openness in all communications between the Council and their legal team to ensure access to full and frank legal advice.

Therefore, the balance of public interest weighs in favour of withholding this information from disclosure.

The plea of the defendant

Guilty pleas to 58 charges.

Not guilty pleas to 8 charges.

The outcome of the case including if it was settled outside of court or within court and if so, was it in Magistrates Court or Crown Court.

We have served 12 Service Warning letters, 6 Formal Cautions and 5 Advice letters.

Court cases have achieved:

Fines of £11,638.65

Costs of £35,462

Victim surcharges of £4,415

Disqualification orders obtained – 10

Seizure orders obtained – 2

Deprivation orders obtained – 3

Sentences include 22 weeks imprisonment suspended for 12 months, an electronic curfew, 4 months imprisonment suspended for 18 months, 10 weeks suspended for 12 months, 150 hours unpaid work.

All cases were heard in the magistrates court

Any appeals made against the prosecution.

None

9) Additional data of the premise/persons/company who was prosecuted (both intended and completed) are:
The number of complaints made against said premise/persons/company
The nature of any said complaint/s made against said premise/persons/company
The date of the first complaint/s made against said premise/persons/company
The date of the first visit to said premise/persons/company
Number of visits to said premise/persons/company
Number of improvement notices or enforcement notices served prior to prosecution against said premise/persons/company 

Whether the said premise/persons/company has any previous conviction/s and if so, the number of these which are under the ‘The Animal Welfare Act 2006’ and/or ‘The Animal Health Act 1961.’

Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 makes provision for public authorities to refuse requests for information where the cost of compliance would exceed the appropriate limit, which for local government is set at £450 or 18 hours of officer time.

To locate and the retrieve this information from our database would require a manual review of 61 separate entries. We would be required to retrieve data from different database modules in multiple manual searches. We estimate this would take 20 minutes per entry, which is over 20 hours and in excess of the appropriate cost limit.

This response acts as a Refusal Notice for this part of your request.

Under the Act, there is a duty to provide advice and assistance as to how a request can be refined to fit within the appropriate limit. Unfortunately, due to the way the data is held, this is not possible for this request.