The Scottish Government

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Chapter 5
Economic, Scientific and Veterinary Advice

KEY FINDINGS

5.1 The Scottish Government adopted a science based approach to the development of its policies for the control of FMD throughout the outbreaks in 2007. High quality and sound objective veterinary and scientific advice was provided to the Scottish Government during 2007, the provision of which was instrumental in ensuring that clear evidence based decisions were made when dealing with the consequences of the FMD outbreak.

A number of important lessons were learned during 2007:

• the benefits of rapid and easy access to emergency advice were highlighted by the information provided by EPIC. This included the identification and evaluation of livestock movements into, out of and within Scotland along with the detailed analysis of risk of FMD spread into and within Scotland;
• the existence of a Scottish resource such as EPIC is an advantage as it can support the specific requirements of the Scottish Government during outbreaks but equally importantly it can also be involved in the development of contingency plans;
• the availability of quality controlled and timely information on livestock movements remains critical for scientific analysis to support policy decisions on disease control strategies. Major improvements are required in the GB systems for recording livestock movements and ensuring the rapid release of that information for analysis;
• it is important to ensure that the capacity to undertake these types of analysis with access to emergency advice is maintained and developed in Scotland;
• the experience in 2007 will enable the Scottish Government to identify the scientific analysis and specialist advice which it requires in future and to ensure that potential providers are aware of these requirements;
• scientific challenge and peer review of the veterinary and other advice was established in 2007. These need to be developed to ensure that assurances are provided that any evidence on which policies depend are scientifically sound and valid.

5.2 The disruption caused by FMD can be minimised if detailed analysis of the potential spread of the virus can be provided quickly and if scientifically valid risk assessments can be used to enable livestock movements to re-commence on a risk basis with minimal delay.

INTRODUCTION

5.3 To ensure that policies were at all times evidence based the Scottish Government relied on the output from a number of sources which included the recently established EPIC and their own Veterinary Advisers headed by the CVO Scotland. The Scottish Government also obtained economic advice and analysis from internal sources and from QMS.

The purpose of this chapter is:

• to describe the role of EPIC and future requirements;
• to identify the types of analysis required in future;
• to consider availability of veterinary advice;
• to assess the effectiveness of scientific challenge and peer review.

THE CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR EPIDEMIOLOGY, POPULATION HEALTH AND INFECTIOUS DISEASE CONTROL ( EPIC)

Role of EPIC

5.4 The Scottish Government funded EPIC in 2006 with £2.6m over 5 years to investigate the epidemiology of animal diseases. During the 2007 outbreaks EPIC responded very quickly and effectively to requests from the Scottish Government which demonstrated good foresight in funding this specific Centre of Excellence.

5.5 The EPIC is a virtual centre linking six partners. The objective is to deliver high quality scientific advice and evidence on the epidemiology of animal diseases of current and emerging veterinary and public health concern that are relevant to Scotland. Details of the partners and their role are shown in Appendix 6. The combined experience of the six partners is very broad covering many specialised fields. EPIC responds to requests for advice and information from the Scottish Government and interacts with policy makers and experts to provide the evidence base for developing policy and shaping decisions. In this role EPIC has developed and applied quantitative methodologies to assess risk and potential spread of disease.

5.6 Researchers at EPIC University of Edinburgh were asked to undertake a number of risk assessments by the Scottish Government, although there was a 7 day delay between confirmation of FMD in August and the first request being made. The output of this work with the presentation of reports and associated risk maps and diagrams was particularly helpful in demonstrating the potential risks, especially of markets and in identifying the animals that had to be traced and inspected. The evidence provided by EPIC was widely used at stakeholder meetings to demonstrate the rationale behind decisions on relaxation or otherwise of movement restrictions.

5.7 EPIC provides a good example of applied science which by tracing movements and evaluating potential risk enables sound veterinary risk assessments to be made. There is also potential to utilise the full range of expertise at EPIC to carry out a number of other functions such as more detailed risk assessments on livestock movements. These activities could in turn help to reduce the disruption caused by a distant FMD outbreak and ensure that proportionate measures are implemented.

Arrangements for commissioning work

5.8 While each of the EPIC partners had a contract with Scottish Government there was no arrangement in place to cover the cost of research and contingencies such as requests from Government for the kind of work undertaken in responding to FMD. Any organisation needs to be able to draw on a fund held by Government to cover the cost of unexpected disease work. Any institute involved will encounter difficulties as they will almost certainly have to re-prioritise their work to deal with an emergency and there will be knock-on effects for other projects to which they have contractual commitments.

5.9 It is almost impossible to anticipate accurately what will be needed in terms of expertise and costs but what can be foreseen is that other projects will suffer during emergency work, so having an agreement in place whereby provision of funds is made available to ensure delayed projects are subsequently completed would be helpful.

Lessons learned

5.10 EPIC provided valuable information on risks to Scotland from the outbreaks in Surrey. It is important to ensure the continued development of appropriate methodologies, scenarios, questions, algorithms etc to ensure the availability of rapid, effective, quality controlled outputs which would be required for the development of control strategies in the face of an FMD outbreak.

5.11 A broad range of expertise and capabilities is required at all times. As part of contingency planning the capacity to meet these requirements must be maintained and developed further in Scotland.

5.12 Mechanisms available to contract services and maintain standing capacity from a group of organisations with expertise shared by a number of people across institutes are important and need to be established. A contract may be necessary to ensure that the services are rapidly available in the event of an FMD outbreak.

Recommendation 26: The Scottish Government must ensure that it has access at all times to the expertise necessary to analyse information on movements and conduct risk analysis using the most up-to-date methodologies and techniques. (Medium Priority)

ANALYSIS OF ECONOMIC AND DISEASE RISK

5.13 The risk analysis conducted by EPIC in 2007 provided valuable information to enable the Scottish Government to develop evidence based policies. Further development of these types of analysis with an extension to include economic analysis would enable a more rapid response using a risk based approach to the determination of risk areas and permitted internal movements. This in turn would help to reduce the disruption caused by any future FMD outbreaks.

Pre-outbreak information

5.14 Detailed pre-outbreak information on livestock movements has a number of benefits as it will:

• provide a base line for reviewing changes in the trade and movement patterns and therefore in identifying increased or decreased risks to Scotland;
• inform the development of effective disease control and prevention methods that minimise the disruption caused by movement controls;
• provide the basis for an evidence based approach to the imposition and relaxation of movement restrictions and other controls;
• enable a rapid assessment of the impact of movement restrictions at any stage or time of year and allow the development of policies to minimise the adverse effects of the FMD controls;
• provide information on the practicality and impact of regionalisation which would permit the movements of animals or animal products out of Scotland.

5.15 An analysis which identifies geographical, temporal and sectoral movements will enable risk areas to be clearly defined using quality controlled information and data available prior to the occurrence of an FMD outbreak. The risks of imposing and lifting livestock movement controls in terms of economic impact and disease transmission can be rapidly evaluated provided the temporal limitations of this information are accepted.

5.16 The risks associated with the different categories of livestock movements into, within and out of Scotland need to be evaluated especially as all the categories of movement have been identified by EPIC. Using this information, risk based movement licences could be developed. It will also be possible to estimate the impact of prohibiting such movements.

5.17 To determine the risks to Scotland it would be necessary to identify the movements into Scotland from England and Wales and other areas of the EU including details of species, categories and timing of the movements in relation to the initial infection on the index case. The destination of the movements whether farm, market or slaughterhouse would be important as a component of the risk analysis. In addition, indications of whether movements are final or involve a series of other movements after arrival in Scotland would need to be assessed.

5.18 Details of movements within Scotland could support regionalisation with specific areas recognised as FMD free. An example relates to the Scottish Islands where full information on the movements into and off the Islands over a one year period is now available from the EPIC analysis. This means if there is the need to impose a national movement ban, as occurred in 2007, the availability of historic data on movements could enable the UK to exclude the Islands from the controls and the restricted zone. The evidence would enable the UK to justify the action to other Member States and the Commission.

5.19 Much of the information has already been provided by EPIC but there is scope for further work within Scotland to include:

• seasonal variation in infectious disease transmission potential within Scottish livestock populations;
• the risk of introduction, connectivity among single and mixed-species livestock holdings in Scotland;
• detailed demographic profiles of the highly-connected livestock holdings in different regions of Scotland;
• contribution of livestock dealers to the risks of infectious disease transmission;
• role of exposure during stays at markets and shows;
• efficiency of the market-day control measures;
• risks associated with multiple pickups of animals for live trade and for slaughter and with animal stays at the collection centres and lairages;
• risks associated with animal gatherings for trade and slaughter could be investigated from both an animal health and food safety stand point.

Recommendation 27: The Scottish Government should develop and clarify the scientific advice and analysis it requires during times of FMD freedom and during outbreaks in order to ensure appropriate information and analysis are available to enable evidence based decisions to be made on risk areas and control strategies. (Medium Priority)

Outbreak information

5.20 At the time an outbreak is confirmed it is important to obtain detailed information of livestock movements for a specific period back to when the initial infection was thought to have occurred. Full details of direct and indirect movements would be needed along with an assessment of risk that FMD had entered and spread within Scotland during that period. Provided information is available from the livestock movement databases this analysis could be completed within a short period.

Data availability for analysis

5.21 Immediate access to the most up-to-date demographic, movement and disease data is essential for a rapid response. Disease data is provided in real time via a web-based system that serves Defra's National Epidemiology Expert Group ( NEEG). Demographic data requires that the most recent census records and animal movements have been received and processed. Access to up-to-date movement data remains a problem, during August and September 2007 considerable delays were incurred with consequences for animal movement tracing and risk assessment work. To operate effectively EPIC and similar groups working as part of the DefraNEEG require access to high quality up-to-date data on animal movements which is obtained from three separate databases described below.

Table 10
Animal movement databases in GB

5.22 It is specified in the Defra framework response plan for exotic disease that "upon suspicion of disease the necessary population and movement data are made available to modelers". During the 2007 outbreak up-to-date extracts from the CTS and AMLS databases were not available immediately. There were problems with the source database for CTS and data could not be loaded onto AMLS. In addition there were problems related to the management information systems which needed to be resolved before the report facility was functional. A different problem arose with the AMLS data where the new copy of the data was only available on a weekly basis. It would appear that the systems were incapable of extracting data and loading and processing other data at the same time. Furthermore SAMS and AMLS provided different levels of details on animal movements. It was possible to identify farm-market-farm or farm-market-slaughterhouse chains of movements for Scottish holdings, but not for English and Welsh holdings.

5.23 It must be accepted that the databases will never be real time due to the delays and constraints on reporting movements and loading the information in to the database. In the case of AMLS, movements may take up-to 6 days to be entered onto the system. The failure of the systems to provide up-to-date information, the incompatibility of AMLS and SAMS, and the inability to extract the information quickly is unacceptable and indicates the systems are not fit for purpose.

Recommendation 28: The Scottish Government should work with Defra to review the effectiveness of all the current systems to collect and record animal movement information and take action to ensure the systems are fit for purpose and can provide information on a GB-wide basis. (High Priority)

VETERINARY ADVICE

5.24 Prior to 2006 the CVO Scotland was a member of State Veterinary Service which was established as a next steps agency in 2005. The CVO Scotland was line managed by the Chief Executive of the Agency. This was not an appropriate arrangement as the responsibility for animal health matters including disease control lay with the Scottish Minister for Environment and Rural Affairs who in turn was responsible to the Scottish Parliament. As a consequence the CVO Scotland and his team of professional advisers were transferred to the line management of the Scottish Executive in April 2007. This fully reflects the importance of providing independent veterinary advice direct to the Scottish Government. The Veterinary Team is highly experienced and was very effective in providing timely and objective advice to policy colleagues and Ministers in the Scottish Government during the outbreak.

5.25 The CVO Scotland or his representative is a member of the UK National Expert Group ( UKNEG) on FMD. They were involved in meetings of the group which met twice a year prior to the FMD outbreak 2007. During the 2007 outbreak Scotland was represented at the meetings of the expert group either in person or more frequently via teleconference. The participation by the CVO Scotland or his representative was valued by other group members.

5.26 The UK as the Member State of the EU is legally obliged to create a permanently operational expert group to maintain expertise in order to assist the authorities in ensuring preparedness against an FMD outbreak. The group should consist of epidemiologists, veterinary scientists and virologists. The terms of reference, membership and role of the National Expert Group are outlined in the Defra framework contingency plan.

5.27 The view of those interviewed indicated that the National Expert Group had worked well. There was scope for improvement, particularly in relation to how questions to the group were formulated and attendance at the group meetings. There was also the view that the role of the meetings was to provide a forum for experts to discuss technical issues without undue influence by policy makers who on occasions had been present and influenced the discussions and outcomes. Instead, the conclusions and advice from the group should be passed to policy makers for consideration.

5.28 Whilst the UK is obliged to have a National Expert Group this is not a requirement for the Devolved Administrations. It would not be practical to have Expert Groups in each Devolved Administration as there are unlikely to be enough experts available, especially during a crisis. It would not be an effective or sensible use of limited resources nor would it help to maintain a consistent approach. In dealing with a disease such as FMD it is important to use the limited number of experts from within the UK to best effect and to ensure their advice is provided to all administrations. There should be a clear mechanism for the Scottish Government to put questions or seek advice from the Expert Group on specific Scottish issues.

Recommendation 29: The Scottish Government should continue to participate as an active member of the UK National Expert Group which should operate on a UK-wide basis. Membership of the group should be limited to experts with policy makers and delivery agents acting as observers. The input of policy makers should be limited to requesting advice and providing information as appropriate but not influencing discussions or the outcome of meetings. (Medium Priority)

SCIENTIFIC ADVICE

5.29 In dealing with an outbreak of FMD it is important for the Scottish Government to have access to the most appropriate independent high quality scientific advice. This advice can be obtained from within Scotland or where necessary from elsewhere in the UK. During the 2007 outbreak advice and information was available from a number of sources. The most relevant question is the extent to which the Scottish Government relies on advice from within Scotland as opposed to utilising advice from other GB-wide bodies, either through acting as an observer or as a member of the relevant group.

5.30 The Chief Scientific Adviser Scotland and the Chief Scientific Advisor for Rural Affairs and Environment in the Scottish Government were briefed on the FMD situation by CVO Scotland. As EPIC was established and provided advice there appeared to be little or no further involvement by Scottish Government Scientists. This was a noticeable contrast between the Scottish Government and Defra where there is a Defra Science Advisory Council ( DefraSAC) and clearly defined role for the Defra Chief Scientist in the event of an outbreak. This difference did not appear to pose any problems in Scotland during the 2007 outbreak but it leaves a potential weakness in the way in which advice is provided to Ministers and the assurance that scientific challenge and appropriate peer review has been applied to that advice. It could be of more importance if an FMD outbreak occurred in Scotland.

Scientific challenge and peer review

5.31 During the 2007 outbreaks scientific information was obtained from EPIC and the Veterinary Advisers within the Scottish Government. The reports from EPIC and risk assessments produced by the Veterinary Team were peer reviewed but the process was only established in the face of the outbreak. The peer review was arranged and conducted on an ad-hoc basis and involved only one expert in a specialised field for the risk assessments and two experts for the EPIC reports. In each case the peer review was valuable and confirmed that the analysis and conclusions were sound.

5.32 It is advisable to have a specific scientific challenge or review process of the advice from the Veterinary Advisers other than the risk assessments. A number of stakeholders commented that there should have been the involvement of more experts from other disciplines in reviewing the veterinary advice. It would be more appropriate to develop the peer review process in peacetime and to establish a mechanism whereby the evidence or outcome from scientific analysis could be formally peer reviewed by a group of experts with expertise not only on the disease but also in areas such as economics, social aspects and the industry impact.

Recommendation 30: The Scottish Government should review how the science challenge and peer review aspects of dealing with emerging scientific evidence informing the response to an outbreak of disease can be improved. It should also consider how best to involve independent experts including economic, social and industry expertise. (Low Priority)

Scientific advisory committees/groups

5.33 The Chief Scientist for Rural Affairs and Environment in the Scottish Government is an observer on the DefraSAC along with observers from the other Devolved Administrations. DefraSAC is a Non-Departmental Public Body which offers expert, independent and published advice on science policy and strategy to Defra's Chief Scientific Adviser and through him to Defra Ministers. 15 independent members are appointed to the Council through open competition. Members are selected for their breadth of scientific knowledge across the range of topics covered in Defra's remit, including the social sciences, rather than for their individual specialisms. Others are co-opted as appropriate to provide further expert advice as required.

5.34 The majority of the Council's work is taken forward through sub-groups of which the sub-group on epidemic diseases considered the situation in respect of the FMD outbreak in 2007. A report by the Epidemic Disease Sub-Group on which there was not a Scottish observer, was approved by the DefraSAC and was submitted to the Defra Chief Scientific Adviser in November 2007. It would be advantageous for Scottish representatives to continue to have access to the main Council and where appropriate to be involved in the relevant specialist sub-groups such as the Epidemic Disease Sub-Group.

5.35 The role of the DefraSAC is to support science and policy making in Defra and not within the Scottish Government although it is valuable for Scottish observers to attend the DefraSAC meetings. Although there is a Scottish Science Advisory Committee it is not clear where the independent strategic advice to the Scottish Government on its science activities in the field of animal health originates. It is debatable whether a similar council needs to be established in Scotland to deal with epidemic diseases. However, in the event of an FMD outbreak in Scotland it would be helpful to have more clarity on where the scientific challenge would originate in order to test the evidence on which polices would be based.

Recommendation 31: The Scottish Government should review its existing Science Advisory Committees to assess whether a new committee should be formed to provide on going expert advice and a challenge function for scientific and veterinary advice in the animal health and welfare field. (Low Priority)

Recommendation 32: The Scottish Government should review its links to Defra science, evaluate how robust these are and discuss with Defra the possibility of closer involvement within Defra Science Advisory Council and its sub-groups. (Low Priority)

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