It's absolutely incredible that the Minister wasn't held to account, but as we know, DEFRA hasn't actually retained a minister long enough to get anything fixed, read their brief or do their job before someone else is brought down by crashing the economy, foisting an unelected unelected prime minister on us or the ongoing sleaze of the last but two - but even more incredible is that everyone involved in writing these regualtions wasn't fired when this situation was brought to DEFRA's attention and a moritorium halting all inspections and granting 5-stars to every establishment until all of the problems were resolved.
But the same poor judgement that engineered the closure of boarding establishments and left communities with no safe or licensed alternatives has continued to screw up. Despite knowing that they caused the rise in unlicensed alternatives and lowered the standards of animal welfare, the only action we've seen is performative zoom calls, pointless tinkering and minor addendums and changes that licensing officers are still failing to apply consistently.
- DEFRA needs to accept that they decided to introduce a 'rating system' that conveys nothing of worth, none of the upgrades and alterations were costed or funded and the entire document is too complicated for local authority workers to read or apply consistently.
- DEFRA needs to understand that they tried to regulate an entire industry that is so varied that the opportunity to impose universal 'standards' is almost nil.
- DEFRA have effectively turned all boarding establishments into prisons for animals and permanent lockdown for owners while reducing the time required to ensure the welfare of the animals - All of which manifested as 26 pages of incompetent drivel that has created more problems than were solved.