General Secretary

AGM report

The year for your General Secretary has been an extremely busy one.  I have fulfilled the promise, which I made last year, to visit all Divisions and attend divisional meetings and introduce myself to your members.  In doing this and attending meeting on behalf of the Association I have spent 45 days full days and travelled over 20,000 miles on Association business.

  Food Standards Agency

Early in the year, May, I met with the Chief Executive of the then new Food Standards Agency, Mr Geoffrey Podger, in order to share with him some of our fears for the future of meat inspection in the United Kingdom.  We were received well and I believe this meeting started to build the basis of a new relationship with the Food Standards Agency.  

  Quite obviously high on the agenda was the concern of members about the proposed changes in meat inspection and the movement towards HACCP based systems.  We made it clear to the Chief Executive, that the basis of such change must be discussed openly in public and not behind closed doors.  We are still fighting that battle to bring out into the open the proposed changes in meat inspection.

  We reminded the Chief Executive of the failures by industry at the time of the SRM Regulations with 46% non-compliance.  We also reminded him of the incidence of TB, which is growing in cattle and pigs. Indeed later in the year we have seen documentation that the incidence of human cases of bovine TB has also doubled over the last couple of years.

  It was clear from the discussions and meetings that we held early in May that both the FSA and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food intended to move ahead and put the HACCP system in place. It was also made very clear that this system would put the onus and responsibility of carrying out meat inspection on plant operators and not as present within national controls.  We informed the Chief Executive that the loss of an independent meat inspection service in the United Kingdom is totally and utterly unacceptable to the Association and would put public health at risk. 

  The Association has made it clear on every occasion throughout the year, that we are not against the modernisation of meat inspection. We are prepared, willing and indeed able to assist in the modernisation of meat inspection. With the vast experience of our members we feel we can contribute greatly to the changes that are needed to produce a modern meat inspection system for the United Kingdom.  I have to inform you that despite making these offers repeatedly, on many, many occasions, to date these offers have not been taken up, but only been paid lip service to in the form of information briefings which the FSA likes to present as consultation.

  The Association’s stance on the privatisation of meat inspection has been made clear all year long - that it should not happen.  There must remain an independent meat inspection service in the United Kingdom.

One of our members coined the phrase we should all support “We should inspect every carcass, every day, in every abattoir”.

  Seminar

In their usual fashion, under the Chief Executiveship of Johnson McNeil, the Meat Hygiene Service played their usual game of brinkmanship on sponsoring people to attend seminar.  This uncertainty going on every year has led to a great deal of stress, unnecessarily being place on those members of the Trust who operate seminar. To their credit, Eric Wood and Malcolm Davis have managed to plow on regardlessly and ensure that our seminar is a success year after year.  This commitment was recognised last year by both Malcolm & Eric being jointly presented with the Robin Irish Award for services to the Association, an award richly deserved.

  At seminar in September Geoffrey Podger, the Chief Executive of the Food Standards Agency, confirmed that it was the Government’s intention and policy to take meat inspection out of national controls and place it in the hands of industry.  Government’s view is that industry should bear the responsibility for the products they produce.  We were informed that the target date for this would be the year 2004 following which there would be a two year implementation period 2004 -–2006. 

  Recently, events have overtaken this.  It would now appear that the implementation of HACCP will take place next year and that all large plants will have compulsory HACCP in place by 2003 and small plants by 2006.  This is a major change to what was promised.

The FSA claims that this was out of their control and in the hands of the European Union this may be so.  We have to make the point however, that the United Kingdom was the only one of the 15 partners who requested that these changes to HACCP be met with the changes in control of meat inspection being passed to industry at the same time.  I am pleased to say that the European Union denied this motion and it was defeated by 14 votes to 1 demonstrating that perhaps not all of our European partners believe that industry should have control of meat inspection systems. 

  Both Johnson McNeil and Geoffrey Podger also promised us at the annual seminar, that training for meat inspectors would be advanced. That prior to HACCP systems being put in place, the training for meat inspectors would take place to enable them to take on any new roles.  This again is a promise that has been reneged on although as an Association we are informed that quotes for this training were obtained by the Meat Hygiene Service - to date no announcement has been made.  Indeed, the profile of training for the next year looks very bleak for meat inspectors. There cold be a major problem in the future with plants already having staff in post to carryout their audit routines, there will be no chance of enhancing the inspectors role.

  Johnson McNeil announced at seminar that he would form an industry-wide group, including UNISON, and the Association of Meat Inspectors to examine the need for training for the meat industry and the regulatory arm, in order to prepare the ground for the changeover in 4 years time.  This group met once in October last year and has since not met at all.  The reason being given was that there was no new information to report. However, you have seen that quite to the contrary there were moves to accelerate HACCP within Europe which were not reported to this group – a fact that hardly fills us with hope for the openness promised by the Food Standards Agency. 

  Also at seminar Robin Pooley OBE gave an entertaining and informative talk on the production of his report. Which had as its main thrust the change from traditional meat inspection into HACCP based systems.  Perhaps the most fascinating insight by Mr Pooley at seminar was the revelation that on being asked to carry out his investigation by the Minister, Mr Pooley asked the Minister what he thought the expected outcomes should be! Which was (unsurprisingly considering the result,) a HACCP based system for meat inspection!

AMI / UNISON Campaign

By the end of the year the UNISON and AMI campaign against the privatisation of meat inspection had gone into full swing, with the AMI delivering a template letter to inspectors via the Hygienist and UNISON delivering their campaign material to every meat inspector in the country.  This campaign is of vital importance to every meat inspector and must be followed through.  It is only by supporting the AMI/UNISON campaign against privatisation that meat inspectors will influence the changes envisaged for the future by the Food Standards Agency.

  The campaign itself was born out of discussion some 18 months ago between myself representing the General Council and Ben Priestley of UNISON, as it became clear which direction MAFF and later the Food Standards Agency intended to take us down.

A campaign of this nature is extremely difficult to co-ordinate if we are to get any change in policy from the government, let alone the European Union.  That is why your participation within the campaign is absolutely vital to its success.

  The Association sent out a standard letter for inspectors to send off to their MPs, MEPs and quite a number of these have been sent with replies being received.  It is clear that if the proposals from the FSA go forward, then the potential model which those changes are to be based upon would include an audit arm for the MHS and this audit arm would comprise of 150 veterinary inspectors & 50 meat inspectors. 

  In effect if the FSA have their way this would mean between 80 and 95% of the jobs currently carried out by meat inspectors would disappear as civil servants, with the intention being that these jobs would re-appear as industry based roles.  We cannot say it clearer; we cannot say it often enough,

Your jobs are on the line.

As meat inspectors you must show the government that we will resist these changes wholeheartedly.  If we fail to act now and the changes are forced through, it will become a fait accompli; you will be working where most of you started from, back in industry. 

Support the campaign against privatisation.  We no longer stand alone in this.

The Alliance

The Association has formed an alliance.  This alliance comprises of a large portion of Industry, the Association, Veterinary colleagues, UNISON and Consumer Organisations. 

The origins of this alliance follow the open letter, which I placed in the meat trades journal addressed to Sir John Krebs.             Subsequently, we were contacted by the Small Abattoirs Federation and the British Abattoir Owners Association, with the objective of finding common ground upon which to base resistance against the changes proposed by government. 

  This common ground was agreed at the first meeting.  It was to ensure an independent meat inspection system for the United Kingdom.  In conjunction with this work, UNISON has organised a petition for MPs to sign calling for an early day motion on the subject of the proposed changes.  Between 70 and 80 MPs had signed this motion.  As you will be aware, with the calling of a general election, this motion will fall and so must be resurrected again after the election is over.  In the meantime, what we must do is attempt to move the alliance on to a new and higher plain. 

  On your behalf I addressed the Veterinary Public Health Association at their (April) spring meeting in Buxton Derbyshire, I asked who in the room supported meat inspection being carried out by industry, not a single hand was raised, our veterinary colleagues are supportive of the aims of the alliance which I have on your behalf invited them to join.