RSPCA Assured members are set to receive significantly more announced and unannounced visits to help restore the scheme’s credibility, following an independent review of the assurance scheme.
The scheme will also take steps to improve enforcement of schemes standards, including greater use of CCTV and body cameras.
The RSPCA commissioned leading audit and consulting firm, Crowe, to carry out an independent review into the scheme in the wake of growing scrutiny on it, as a result of a series of farm exposés and calls by high-profile celebrities and others for it to be scrapped.
The RSPCA said it was reassured that the review found that the scheme is ‘operating effectively to provide assurance that animal welfare standards are being met across members’, but said it would respond to all 20 of its recommendations.
Under the review, 225 RSPCA Assured farm sites were randomly selected for unannounced visits, and 200 unannounced assessments were completed, covering approximately 22.5 million individual animals at the point of inspection. Half of these visits were completed by the third party or had an independent auditor on site
Across these 200 farms, 93% had less than five non-compliances out of a minimum of over 500 welfare standards per species. There were 294 total non-compliances across those sites. Many of these non-compliances were for minor or administrative issues and RSPCA said its team was working with these farms to remedy these areas.
The Crowe review concluded that the findings for the unannounced programme of farms sampled were consistent with the results of standard assessment visits, suggesting that the current assessment programme is detecting non-compliances and that there aren’t wider welfare issues.
In addition, the levels of non-compliances were not significantly different between those undertaken by RSPCA Assured staff and those undertaken by the third-party audit body.
But it added that there are ‘numerous known inefficiencies in the assessment process as a result of technological and resourcing challenges’.
The review identified ‘opportunities to strengthen governance’, including executive and Board engagement and the wider systems and structures to support the scheme.
Recommendations
Promising to implement all the review’s 20 recommendations, which covered three broad themes – governance and culture, member non-compliance and systems and ways of working), RSPCA Assured said it has already started to implement changes as part of an ongoing improvement programme, including:
- Significantly increasing the number of announced and unannounced visits to RSPCA Assured members. The review noted that planned visits currently have considerable record keeping requirements which inherently requires a level of notice for the visit to be successful. Moving to a wider programme of unannounced visits which focus on animal welfare and site inspection will help ensure a continuous cycle of lessons being learnt and standards being maintained throughout the year, it said.
- Exploring the use of more technological aids, including additional CCTV and using body worn cameras to aid identification of issues and improved enforcement of standards.
- Developing and applying a grading to all non-compliances identified to prioritise actions by members.
- Developing an approach to identify potential concerns regarding farmer and stockkeeper welfare and investigate how this may impact upon animal welfare. The report said farmer or stock-keeper wellbeing is not routinely assessed as a contributing factor affecting animal welfare and non-conformances.
- RSPCA Assured has developed a Target Operating Model (TOM) as part of its improvement programme to modernise the scheme. This provides a framework for managing the scheme effectively and the scope of the TOM will be broadened to encompass governance and culture within the scheme.
- The Crowe review also called for ‘changes and development of incident response approaches for RSPCA Assured to prevent siloed decision making and rapid response to concerns raised’. It said there should be ‘clearer routing processes’ when potential issues are raised through the number of different sources across both RSPCA and RSPCA Assured. It said the investigations and sanctions process and appeals process require further clarification.
Confidence in the scheme
RSPCA said: “This review provides us, our supporters and the public further confidence that RSPCA Assured is actively improving the lives of millions of farmed animals.
“We want a world where RSPCA Assured isn’t needed any more but right now it is the last line of defence for far too many of the most vulnerable and exploited animals. There are more than a billion animals being farmed in the UK every year, the majority of whom are in low welfare systems, with an appalling lack of legal protection.”
“We have an ambitious modernisation programme for RSPCA Assured which is already underway. This includes significantly increased unannounced visits and further exploring the use of technology – such as body worn cameras and CCTV – to give comprehensive and real-time welfare insights.”
Welfare washing
A coalition of 60 campaign organisations and high-profile names, including comedian Ricky Gervais, actor Joanna Lumley and rock star Bryan Adams, called for the scheme to be scrapped, after undercover investigations at around 40 farms found what the campaigners claimed were serious welfare issues.
In a letter, they claimed the scheme was ‘welfare-washing animal cruelty and misleading the public’.