FAWC Additional Comments on the revised Draft Animal Welfare Delivery Strategy
FAWC responded with detailed comments in a written response to the Consultation on the Draft Delivery Strategy sent to the Welfare Delivery Strategy team in February 2007.
Additional comments to those in response to your email of 12 June are:
The Vision statement still does not read well and would benefit from re-drafting. It lacks clarity and is cumbersome. For example, an alternative could be along the lines “Animal keepers, owners and those that use animals must understand, accept and meet their responsibilities to ensure good standards of welfare for them and have the necessary knowledge and skills to provide for their needs, whilst those that interact with or benefit from animals pay due regard to their welfare”. The wordings concerning management and minimisation of risk, “prevention of preventable problems” and dealing with other problems are somewhat clumsy, unclear and potentially confusing (for example we very rarely minimise risk in society and often do not prevent preventable problems because the costs of doing so are too high relative to the benefits).
The scope of the AWDS should be consistent with the scope of the AH&WS and with the Animal Welfare Act.
The roles and responsibilities section is well-drafted and thorough. Under 4.4 bullet point 2 should read “…aimed at delivering ’good’ (or ‘improved’) animal welfare outcomes” to be consistent with elsewhere in the document.
Ownership of the AWDS needs to be across stakeholders. The England Implementation Group seems the appropriate body to help drive forward the AWDS, to foster wide ownership and shared commitment to its intended outcomes and to hold stakeholders to account.
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