A proposal by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) to directly employ 25 per cent of official veterinarians (OVs) working in abattoirs has sparked a row in the meat sector.
At the moment, OVs delivering official controls are employed and provided by a monopoly contractor, Eville and Jones, but the FSA has warned Brexit and pandemic-related vet shortages have highlighted the risks of relying on a single supplier.
The meat industry has broadly welcomed the idea of in-sourcing, as job security and civil service career pathways are expected to help with recruitment and retention of OVs.
But an FSA calculation that costs to the sector will increase by 7-10 per cent over the next two years has caused concern, particularly among smaller abattoir owners already struggling with high overheads.
John Mettrick, who has served on a number of animal welfare and butchery panels advising Government and until recently owned a small slaughterhouse, said: 鈥淚 would applaud the FSA鈥檚 thoughts on trying to get consistency by taking OVs in-house, but raising prices for inspection is not a good thing.
鈥淭he biggest fear is this could be the thin end of the wedge and lead to the removal of the discount scheme for small abattoirs.
鈥淚f they remove the discount scheme, the way they are regulated at the moment, they would all shut tomorrow.
鈥淲e need a risk-based, proportionate system of regulation which would suit all small abattoirs.鈥�
The Association of Independent Meat Suppliers agreed that regulations need reform, but strongly disputed the FSA鈥檚 suggestion that in-sourcing OVs would lead to an increase in costs.
Norman Bagley, the group鈥檚 director of policy, pointed out that under the current regime, the cost of an OV working for 12-15 an hour was being marked up twice, first by Eville and Jones, who charge 35-40 an hour, and then by the FSA, which charges the plant 52-54 an hour.
He said he could not see where the FSA was getting the 7-10 per cent figure from, warning it would 鈥榮care鈥� small abattoir owners.
Mr Bagley said: 鈥淭hey will argue that civil service employment terms include a pension, but they have given Eville and Jones so much money, with extra contractual payments to increase the wage rates within the business, that I actually think now the Eville and Jones wage rates will be on a par with the employed model.鈥�
An FSA spokesperson said: 鈥淲hile we are not undertaking a full consultation, in line with best practice we are engaging with stakeholders to ensure we fully understand the impact of the proposed change.
鈥淲e will use this insight to inform our decision making and to guide the next steps on the project.鈥�
