Seeing the errors of their ways:
- It's too late to reverse the damage done to our industry by this beauracratic incompetence.
- The impact of losing so many dedicated and professional people over such a short space of time can't be reversed.
- The closure of a third of the UK's boarding capacity hasn't even filtered through to the general public currently planning their holidays.
- DEFRA has no incentive to accept responsibility and have offered no moritorium on licensing or a retraction of the regulations.
- DEFRA have created financially disadvantagous rules for licensed establishments to raise animal welfare but in doing so caused a catastrophic rise in unlicensed alternatives who are less reliable, less safe and beyond all government control.
- The lack of any reasonable or speedy action by anyone has increased the opportunity for thousands of untrained, unlicensed and uninsured people to operate unhindered by exhorbitant overheads, training or rules.
- Without any of the responsibilities or costs the competition can put out unchallenged negative advertising demonising kennels and catteries as prisons accross all social media, and all we hear from those responsible for overseeing these illegal operations is crickets.
What concerns me is that our industry representatives are forced to pussy-foot around these clowns to get them to do anything while we should be naming and shaming all those involved, and getting them kicked out of public service because no one likes lazy incompetent officials anyway - and those who put people's favourite cattery out of business are going to be even less popular than infected yeast.
DEFRA have had sufficient time and data to identify their mistakes but the only thing these bureaucrats care about is not facing the consequences of the chaos they've caused by their ruinous ventures into a business they didn't understand and the consequential decimation and destruction they inflicted on people they care nothing about.
Fixing their mess:
- We need a distinct classification separate from Tourism and Charities and we need to release DEFRA from the responsibility of being involved in writing regulations or retaining any damaging influence over this sector.
- We need our regulations to be restricted to a three page document of single achievable, policable and universal regulations with an educational advisory on health and hygiene for new businesses.
- The CFSG must be reformed or abandoned because the current make-up of the CFSG has proved itself to be uninformed, unbalanced and unfit to advise on animal welfare to any government department.
- Inspections must benefit the industry - We need to dispense with all adversarial, aggressive and threatening inspections and replace them with non-confrontational and educational help.
- Inspections should only be carried out by specialists in the field of animal welfare and only by people who have years of realvent experience in this industry.
- We need no rating system - a rating system that isn’t transparent, self-explanatory and doesn’t consider experience is not fit for purpose and must be scrapped.
- The involvement of local authorities must be restricted to listing whether a boarding establishment is licensed.