It's 2022 and for the past three years people working in our industry:
- 01 have been fighting to be recognised as an essential and distinct industry requiring full representation on the Canine & Feline Sector Group's (CFSG) advisory board to reverse the damage done by the CFSG to our industry.
- 02 have been trying to survive during the pandemic after a clerical error caused many local authorities to bankrupt local businesses by denying eligibility for travel restriction Covid payments during the UK's lockdown.
- 03 have been subjected to abuses of power perpetrated by local authority licensing officers using DEFRA's legislation to justify their mistakes and the widespread incidents of bullying and thuggery.
It's difficult to generalise when there are actually some half-decent well-meaning licensing officers who understand that their only role should be to provide a license - and the purpose of an inspection should be to identify areas than could improve animal welfare - but it's an unavoidable fact that DEFRA wrote regulations has allowed all council employees to act as adversarial power-crazed thugs despite having no practical skills or relevant experience of running a business or our industry - and this is particularly problematic because the only qualification they need to wield unfettered power is a generic and entirely inadequate course that wouldn't qualify them to clean a litter tray without supervision.
In an ideal world all political entities would be aware that their purpose is to identify and fix failing systems and improve the function of beneficial systems - But here we are in an anarchic and dystopian world where the least amongst us have thrown out collectivism and enshrined inequality by assuming to rule us - The people who are already a wasteful and unjustifiable drain on a country's finances and the most unproductive members of society - who get to choose their own working conditions and their own rates of pay and then deny everyone else the same equality of life.
The fact is that while many bigoted politicians have made a career out of miligning sectors of society for their cost to the state, bureaucrats and politicians are the real parasites and as individuals are the highest paid recipients of welfare - All of them who should be answerable to everyone, are constantly in everyone's way when all we need from them is to stay hidden, do their jobs well and improve the lives of the people they serve - and in exchange our taxes will keep them from having to work or get their hands dirty.
It's as important to establish that our industry wasn't consulted on their own regulations as it is to establish that individual licensing officers were willing to impose DEFRA's uncosted, damaging and inefficient regulations without question.
Both groups threaten the survival of an entire sector of private businesses without taking any responsibility for their actions and have yet to make any admission of failure or offer any contrition.
There's no other job in the world where someone is given free reign to do whatever they like and not be responsible for anything they do. But licensing officers have been allowed to run roughshod over this industry, interpreting the regulations without guidance or consequences for themselves and there are no sanctions in place or a right of appeal to stop them.
At the receiving end of this ridiculous chain of demand are businesses forced to pay taxes and VAT and then pay on top for their own inspections while the additional costs of implementing the regulations means that the public end up paying more for a worse service - Licensing officers have been abusing a sector of demonstrably responsible hard-working, useful and productive members of society who give no consent but are given no choice but to comply.
Over the past three years there have been numerous examples of licensing officers using our annual inspections as an excuse to bully, make suggestive or sexual advances, close down catteries, reduce star ratings, demand remodelling - in short, threatening industry members with financial ruin in exchange for a star-rating that is not supported by this industry and is not able to inform anyone's decision to use a cattery.
As a result of this perfect storm of intransigence, ignorance and bureaucratic misfeasance:
"In the last three years the UK has lost around a third of it's boarding capacity - our plight was discussed in parliament and as more people are driven out of this industry - the majority cite DEFRA's regulations and council inspections as the last straw and the refusal of many local authorities to properly support animal boarding establishments during Covid comes in a close second"
--Cat Whisperer 2022