Fundamental questions around TB governance

Responding to a written question back in February 2024, Agriculture Minister Andrew Muir confirmed that DAERA has commissioned the Strategic Investment Board (SIB) to undertake a review of the TB Eradication Partnership (TBEP).

The TBEP was formed in June 2018 to provide expert advice to DAERA and included representatives from across veterinary, farming and environmental conservation, under the chairmanship of Sean Hogan. The tenure of the members of the TBEP came to an end in December 2023.

Whether the TBEP will be re-constituted remains unclear and in his answer, Minister Muir said the SIB report will inform his decisions on the way forward.

Of course, it is right that the minister carefully considers his options, but a failure to reinstate TBEP would create some fundamental questions for DAERA.

To understand that, it is important to go back to the eradication strategy published by the TB Strategic Partnership Group (TBSPG) back in December 2016. That high level group spent over two years developing their strategy, working closely with the best scientific experts and taking views from across the industry. Their work formed the basis for the TB eradication strategy for NI, published by DAERA in 2022.

A key recommendation made by the TBSPG was to put in place a new TB governance structure in NI, headed by a new oversight body (TBEP), under which would sit a small number of Regional Eradication Partnerships (REPs) and local Disease Response teams. The aim was to create joint responsibility for the disease among farmers, vets and government, rather than TB policy being seen as a government-imposed requirement.

In their strategy published in 2022 DAERA committed to establishing the first of three REPs in NI. That hasn’t happened and just two years later, there seem to be question marks over the future for TBEP as well.

If the TBSPG advice around governance is effectively ignored, you would have to question why anyone in industry would devote time to working on government-commissioned strategies and whether any subsequent document is worth the paper it is written on.