DEFRA's 2024 Regulations (Part 2)

Part 2 - DEFRA's Regulations

To decide if an activity is covered by the regulations and needs a licence to operate, you should consider all of the following guidance. All cat boarding activities need a licence if they’re carried out as a commercial business. To decide if an activity is a business and will need a licence, consider if the operator:

• makes any sale or carries out the activity to make a profit
• earns any commission or fee from the activity

Being licensed is not only pointless, no rating or inspection provides the public with anything they want to know. Our customers want to be confident that their pets are being cared for while they’re away - and while being a 5-star cattery should be a source of pride, there is no identifiable commercial advantage to being rated anything less than 5 stars.

• The cost of a licence is set by local authorities, it’s set arbitrarily does not measure the level of care or rate experience and does not represent value for money for any business owner.
  
• Local authorities are not provided with any resources to detect or inspect any unlicensed businesses placing licensed businesses at further financial disadvantage to the unregulated alternatives.

Activities that fulfil one or more of the following criteria do not require a licence:

• veterinary practices where the housing provided is part of the cat’s treatment
• businesses that look after the cat within their owner’s home such as cat sitters

Veterinary practices cannot be exempt from providing the same quality environment, the same restrictions, attendance and space requirements as catteries or kennels and all species must be separated by sight, sound and smell to avoid unnecessary distress.

Cat sitters cannot be exempt from the same educational requirements and must be licensed and insured and operate under the same legislation as catteries & kennels - or there must be an official declaration relating to all unlicensed businesses listing the potential risks of employing sub-standard or untrained staff and underlining the fact that operating without any relevant educational level or relationship with a vet is not an option if you work with companion animals.

Minimum standards It is expected that all businesses will meet and maintain minimum standards. If on a renewal inspection you identify minor failings that do not compromise welfare standards, follow the risk-based approach to renewing a licence. To grant a new animal activities licence for cat boarding, you must check that businesses meet all of the minimum standards in this guidance.

What the fuck is wrong with DEFRA?

A “new animal activities licence for cat boarding” is in real speak a license to run a hotel for cats - and DEFRA have effectively banned all activities and DEFRA compromised welfare standards by demanding valuable care-time be replaced with pointless bureaucracy.

Businesses have been closed because nothing in these regulations had a clear objective and nothing was written with any practical working knowledge of the sector. Everything is too complex and open to wild interpretation and many low IQ officials tasked with carrying out an inspection were not able to understand that their role was not to look for reasons to deny licenses or close down businesses but to advise on the rectification of minor failings.

The lopsided power dynamics that these regulations place in the hands of local authorities must be addressed:

There should have been a national and independent appeals process set up to deal with abuse, funds provided for upgrades and if required a mechanism in place to determine timeframes, extract compensation and provide financial protections for businesses and communities affected by incorrect decisions.

All these safeguards should have been in place because under the law, when an individual sets fire to a single business they are charged and sentenced accordingly. But when bureaucrats set fire to an entire industry, no one is responsible. DEFRA turned a long-standing community services industry that allows people to go on holiday at a reasonable cost into unprofitable and unsustainable enterprises - and allowed local authorities to demand massive financial inputs for remodelling from people who have probably rarely paid tax because most cattery owners earn less than the national minimum wage in exchange for a licence.

This discussion of DEFRA's regulation fiasco is covered in ten short articles:
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10