Written question asked by Chris Huhne (Liberal Democrat) on Monday, 30 April 2007, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 2 May 2007. It was answered by Ben Bradshaw (Labour) on Tuesday, 8 May 2007 on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

State Veterinary Service

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the estimate he has made of the cost of merging the State Veterinary Service, the Dairy Hygiene and Egg Marketing Inspectorates and the Wildlife Licensing and Registration Service.

Answer: The Hampton Review recommended the consolidation of DEFRA inspection and enforcement functions into seven thematic regulators, with one of those regulators being a new Executive Agency for Animal Health and Welfare, with the State Veterinary Service (SVS) at its core. DEFRA Ministers subsequently determined to merge the Dairy Hygiene Inspectorate, the Egg Marketing Inspectorate, and the Wildlife Licensing and Registration Service with SVS to create such a body. The Dairy Hygiene Inspectorate joined SVS in October 2006, and the Egg Marketing Inspectorate and WLRS joined on 1 April 2007. The new enlarged agency was then re-named to Animal Health.The cost of collating the mergers was approximately £200,000 which was predominantly internal staff costs. The indirect costs are difficult to quantify. For example, there would be an opportunity cost for staff working on the Hampton project as opposed to other areas of work, but as to what these were it would be very difficult to provide figures against.

Secondary information