Agenda and draft minutes

Dodds.

The Chair will consider the admission of any late items of urgent business. Where the item is already included on the agenda, it will appear under that item but new items of urgent business will be dealt with at item 6.

None notified

A member with a personal interest in a matter who attends a meeting of the Authority at which the matter is considered must disclose to that meeting the existence and nature of that interest at the commencement of that consideration, or when the interest becomes apparent.

A member with a personal interest in a matter also has a prejudicial interest in that matter if the interest is one which a member of the public with knowledge of the relevant facts would reasonably regard as so significant that it is likely to prejudice the member’s judgement of the public interest

None notified

To consider the Animal Welfare work delivered by the RSPCA, looking at the Community Animal Welfare Footprints and lessons for Haringey.

1. ANIMAL WLEFARE IN HARINGEY – ROYAL  SOCIETY FOR THE PPREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS [RSPCA]

Piers Claughton – Senior Local Government Adviser attended the meeting to discuss the work of the organisation.   The RSPCA is the world’s oldest animal organisation and currently has 267 inspectors, 148 animal collection officers responding to 1.1 million calls which the society receives [2007 figures].

The society has 17 regional; 40 branch run animal centres in addition to 34 clinics in England and Wales. 

The two major pieces of legislations passed in the last few years are:

Clean Neighbourhood & Environment Act 2005 [section 68]

This legislation amended aspects of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and was anticipated to tackle the inconsistency in the delivery of stray dogs services.  The new legislation:

Removes police responsibility for receiving stray dogs

Requires local authorities to ‘where practicable’ provide an out of hours reception centre.

Local authority remains ultimately responsible for the stray dogs regardless of any outsourcing.

Animal Welfare Act 2006

The Animal Welfare Act is one of the most significant legislation passed.  It impacts on a variety of services that local authorities provide including licensing of boarding, breeding and pet shop establishments, stray dog service and allotments management.  The primary legislation:

• Covers vertebrate
• Introduces the ‘Duty of Care’
• Maintains the cruelty offence under the Protection of Animals Act 1911
• Gives local authorities new ‘optional powers’ to issue improvement notices/powers of entry.

With regard to animal welfare incidents, we expect anything to do with a stray - including animal welfare is the local authorities responsibility. We investigate any complaint that is made to our cruelty and advice line  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10.

To agree a timetable for the next meetings of the Panel – 4^th December 2008 at 6pm.

4^th December 2008.

Yuniea Semambo                                                 Sharon Miller

Head of Members Services                                  Principal Scrutiny Support Officer

225 River Park House                                           Tel No: 020 8489-71756

Wood Green N22 4HQ                                                     Sharon.miller@haringey.gov.uk    

None submitted