DEFRA Announce Date for Police to Hand Over Stray Dog Responsibilities
written by Hamish Lazari. All rights reserved.
DEFRA has finally announced the date that it intends to transfer responsibility for stray dogs from the police solely to local authorities.
A letter sent to councils announces that the handover date will be April 2008. A settlement figure of £4 million pounds has also been agreed but this money will be paid into the general grant that goes to all councils.
The letter mentions that the duty of the council will be to provide a reception centre for dogs and not a collection service, how this will work remains to be seen, what about health and safety risks to a person told to take a dog in their own car to a reception centre, what if the dog attacks the finder when they are bringing the dog in?
Would liability transfer to the local authority or reception centre that advises a finder to bring the dog to them?
DEFRA advice includes asking councils to work with amongst others involved with stray dogs, animal welfare charities; somehow it has escaped the notice of DEFRA that the major player animal welfare charities such as the RSPCA stopped working in partnership with local councils so as to force them to deal with stray dogs a number of years ago?
Many dog warden services used to have excellent partnership working relationships with the RSPCA until it stopped taking in stray dogs until they had completed the statutory seven day period in council holding kennels.
As usual the message from DEFRA is confusing and leaves more questions than it answers?
More information can be found on the DEFRA website at:
www.defra.gov.uk
Enter stray dog in the search box and you will be directed to the relevant page with the latest information.
On Tuesday 23rd October 2007 however, the page would not open and it was displaying an error message.
www.ndwa.co.uk
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