AHVLA Chief defends agency
Catherine Brown
Chief Executive of the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency (AHVLA) Catherine Brown has been questioned by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee (EFRACom) after failures in upgrading the agency's SAM computer system have led to severe problems for farmers and vets in bTB hotspots.
When asked by EFRACom Chair Anne McIntosh (Conservative) if and when the problems would be resolved, Ms Brown (pictured) replied “They are not resolved yet. We are in the process of resolving them. We should have resolved them already, so my time scale is: it is extremely urgent to resolve the problems.”
“We should have been able to go live in September with it all working properly. There are some things we have done that make it not entirely just another case of us getting stuffed and spending a huge amount of money on something that has not worked.” she added.
However, Mr Neil Parish MP (Conservative), who was a farmer prior to his entry into politics, sharply criticised ‘huge problems getting licences to move cattle that are going to slaughter’ before asking Ms Brown “Bluntly, why is it that, in the 21st century, the Government put in a system that they pay good money for and it does not damn well work?”
With Strangles Awareness Week just around the corner (5-11 May), vets are being encouraged to share a survey about the disease with their horse-owning clients.
