1st draft.
Prepared by the
National Dog Warden Association.
Feb 2001.

Code of Practice:

Application.

This Code of Practice will apply to all Local Authorities (Metropolitan, Borough or District Councils) in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
This Code of Practice will apply to all those services, or parts of services, within the said Local Authorities, which provide in any way for the control or welfare of animals: domestic, feral or wild, indigenous or non-indigenous.
This Code of Practice will apply to all officers, regardless of seniority, working within the provision of any Local Authority Animal Control or Welfare Service.
This Code of Practice will apply to all ‘contract’ services appointed by a Local Authority to provide all or part of any Local Authority’s Animal Control or Welfare Service.

Extent.

This Code of Practice in no way replaces, in all or part, any existing Codes, Regulations or Orders pertaining to Local Authority provision of Animal Control or Welfare Services, nor does it replace any recommendation or instruction with regard to other formal requirements placed on these services e.g. Circulars from Central Government Offices, Heath and Safety Regulations, The Highway Code etc.

Code of Conduct.

The Code of Conduct, for application to the Code of Practice, is The Code of Conduct for Local Government Employees found in the National Agreement on Pay and Conditions (the Green Book). It is expected that all those to which the Code of Practice applies (see Applications) will adopt the terms and conditions of this Code of Conduct and through it deal accordingly with any breaches of the Code of Practice.

Implementation.

This Code of Practice sets required standards, which may be the subject of inspection both routinely and in the event of any complaint. It also requires Local Authorities formally present an annual summary of their service. The implementation of any standard, set out in this Code of Practice, is the obligation of any service to which the Code applies (see Application).

National Monitoring Group.

This Code of Practice will be monitored and enforced by a National Monitoring Group appointed by the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions (Now DEFRA). The obligations on this Group will be to:

Collate annually a national statistical record from the figures supplied by the Local Authorities.
Perform random inspections of Services.
Investigate complaints made against Services or service providers.
Report to the DETR on national service provisions by means of an annual report incorporating information from the previous obligations.
Advise local authorities on ‘best practice’ and the Code of Practice.
Code of Practice:

Requirements.

Each Local Authority, to which this Code applies, shall ensure that any officer working in the provision of Animal Control or Welfare Services shall be properly qualified and trained, through accredited training courses, to provide the defined range of operational requirements for which he/she is responsible.

Prior to 2007 if previous non-vocational training, or, individual courses, or, an employed officer’s experience, have been, or are, compatible with the requirements of accredited training they may be considered as accreditation for operational requirements – subject to assessment. Operational Requirements and Training form appendix A of this Code of Practice.

The operational services provided by Local Authorities in animal control and welfare have roles in both public protection and animal welfare not only protecting human society from the irresponsibility of some animals’ owners, but also the animals themselves from misunderstanding, ignorance and abuse. They are therefore Services with responsibilities for education and enforcement and their activities must include both elements to fulfil their complete role. For this reason the funding of these Services should not be associated with any function and priority should not be given to functions which raise revenue in the form of fees or fines.

Where the Authority enforces any duty or power it shall be enforced in accordance with written policies and procedures that respect the Orders, Regulations and any formal guidance given in legislation. The local authority will ensure that these policies and procedures are regularly updated and fully respect both public protection and animal welfare needs (see appendix B).

Record keeping, of complaints received and actions taken, will be maintained across the range of Animal Control and Welfare activities to a standard set out on pro-forma ACW1, appendix C, of this Code of Practice and will be required for submission annually. In addition to this there may be inspection, made randomly, of any service provider; by a person, or persons, appointed to do so on behalf of the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions, and representing the Animal Control and Welfare Monitoring Group; who may then report their findings in both internal and public reports.

The proper evaluation of the service performance provided by the policies and procedures adopted by an individual authority to solve to the problems that are being experienced by the community within that individual district, not the routine self-perpetuation of enforcement activity, is required by this Code of Practice. Evaluation forms appendix C of the Code.

It remains the responsibility of each Local Authority as the ‘lead body’: in the control of stray dogs, dog identification and animal/premises licensing regulations; to ensure that there is adequate liaison with the Police, Veterinary Surgeons and other interested agencies. With respect to Welfare however local authorities may not be the ‘lead body’. In either case the arrangements between organisations needs to identify the services they will provide, individually or jointly, in the light of their proper roles as identified in legislation and statutory obligations.

This Code of Practice accepts that the Local Authority Services providing for animal control and welfare at District level will be likely to continue to vary widely across the U.K. according to local needs. It is therefore important that within the various options that will continue to exist the Code of Practice is applied to each operational requirement, as individually adopted by a district, ensuring proper training and its practical application to policy and procedure.

Code of Practice note:

It is not considered to be the purpose of this draft of the Code of Practice to provide detail for appendix A. B. or C. of the Code.

Considerations for the ingredients of each appendix can be found within the body of the preceding report and require further development.

The eventual substance of each appendix will depend on the extent to which it is felt that establishing broad principles is better than attempting to completely codify.

It may be that, over a five year period of introduction, examination of the statistics (which it will be compulsory on authorities to submit) and examination of best and worst practices by the monitoring group, will enable more to be introduced to each appendix than might be wise to introduce at this time.

A draft pro-forma for the collation of the necessary statistics for analysis is, however, included with this draft.