Economics of the mad house?

[Ciss]

Bearing in mind the govts total inability to do the costings and risk inflation assessments on the West Coast Mainline refranchise, can we believe that the cost evaluation that 'proved' that the continuing cost of £175000 per annum for running NED as a biosecurity operation was unsupportable is a result of correct calculations? I think not as every equine is equally vulnerable to AHS, WNV, swamp.fever (now in Germany) and many racehorses -- and a growing number of dressage horses -- have values in the millions and cannot be insured for exotic diseases. Its the economics of the mad house if you ask me!

 

[Luci07]

Being stupid here ..but how can it really cost £175k per year to run ?

 

[tallyho!]

People have to be paid, materials need to be bought, rent, utilities... that's quite conservative.

 

[Luci07]

Just how many people are needed to run this database though? And where is it housed? I work in IT have questioning the costs.

 

[Ciss]

Just how many people are needed to run this database though? And where is it housed? I work in IT have questioning the costs.

Up until the web site was taken down over the weekend, 2 full time and 1 1/2 time member of staff. The office was at Stoneleigh but staff also had the facility to access the system from remote locations where possible. Much of the time was spent chasing PIOs (DEFRA-approved Passport Issuing organisations, bith studbook and commercial ID only ones) for overdue uploads of data and coping with the problems created by the fact that the PIOs concerned used a variety of platforms and data systems and also provided data of a wide range of quality. The competitive tendering process expected the tenderers to undertake all the current NED work relating to UELNs, microchip records and updates of existing files (changes of ownership, death etc) but not the breeding and performance related side for about £200,000 a year and it would appear that none of them (all respected proven providers) could do this work for the cost allowed, which was part of the problem as this would have meant that the shortfall would have to have been met by DEFRA which the 'cuts' policy made impossible anyway.