Imagine if DEFRA bureaucrats cared as much about solving the issues as they put into evading responsibility.
Imagine if they had spent the same amount of time consulting our sector as they have wasted denying that the entire debacle was their fault.
DEFRA’s problems are all self-inflicted because they decided to make up the most useless rating system ever devised and then surrounded it with the most brainless, unenforceable and unworkable regulations ever written. And they did it because they were given a job that they didn’t have the experience to carry out, received no reliable advice and through their own hubris did not think it was important to contact anyone in this sector.
From the outside it looks like this was carried out after a couple of the DEFRA kids put their hands up when they were asked if they had pets when they were growing up - Because the regulations suggest that they scaled up their experience of once a month dog-walking experience and occasional cat-feeding to write our regulations because they had no knowledge of how any business in this sector operates.
But ignorance and inexperience is not the only reason why government institutions and bureaucracies are unsuited and incapable of writing cohesive or relevant regulations.
DEFRA has no in-house talent because it was all outsourced, and whatever talent and responsibilities were once a bulwark of sanity against political games, bureaucrats only act when they’re told what to do by corporate interests, consultants and lobbyists.
The entire bureaucratic apparatus relies on advice from knowledgeable sources for which there’s no objective test for and apparently DEFRA’s only choice was the charity lobbyists on the Canine and Feline Sector Group who do not represent our sector and have no connection with us.
Diagram of why government fails to reflect the public interest.
Consultants and lobbyists operate behind closed doors but are the visible portion of the structural failures behind a movement created to undermine democracy.
Lobbying generally centres around corporate, charity and the occasional trade association, where organisations attempt to corrupt politicians through political donations and misadvise bureaucrats into supporting legislation that only supports lobbyist’s interests.
Consultants generally pretend to offer independent expertise but their aim is to gain advantages for their associated business interests - Extorting huge consultancy fees provides them with corporate welfare provided by public taxation.
One of the most notorious recent heists ordered by the Cabinet and facilitated by bureaucrats was the Covid track and trace system that cost the tax-payer £1million per day in consultancy fees and never functioned and no one has been held responsible.
DEFRA doesn’t deliver on any level to any of its constituent sectors because it’s unmanageable and the structural failures are entirely undeniable. It doesn't take three years to fix your mistakes - And the only solution is so overdue that it requires DEFRA to be broken up and we need to end the revolving door between politician and lobbyist across all government departments.