EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
A. FMD Review (Scotland) 2007 & Contingency Planning
This report has been commissioned as part of the Scottish Government's review of the handling of the 2007 Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak. As the Scottish Government notes, "Contingency planning arrangements are [...] central to this review and as such an evaluation is required of the efficacy of Scotland's FMD Contingency Plan and, if necessary, recommendations made on areas for improvement" (Source: Schedule 2: Research Specification). 1
In particular, the Research Specification requires an assessment of the efficacy of Scotland's Foot and Mouth Disease Contingency Plan (hereafter ' CP') in terms of:
- Usability in an outbreak of FMD
- Capacity to deal with a range of scales and patterns of disease outbreak
- Providing an immediate response to all aspects of a disease situation
- Having identified key policy and operational responses likely to be introduced in a major outbreak.
B. Aim and Objectives
The Scottish Government's Aim for this project is the independent analysis and evaluation of Scotland's current FMDCP to:
- Evaluate whether the CP provides sufficient information to facilitate an effective response to foot and mouth disease incursion in GB
- Analyse whether the CP is suitable for leading a response to disease outbreak in Scotland, and
- Identify steps in the CP to be taken in the event of FMD incursion elsewhere
(Source: Schedule 2: Research Specification)
The Project Objectives are:
- To review the objectives which underpin the CP;
- To identify any gaps either in scope or content;
- To advise on the suitability of the layout and practicality of the CP;
- To consider links to the supporting infrastructure;
- To make recommendations on areas for improvement to form the basis of a future revision of the CP, and
- To consider the relationship between the Scottish CP and arrangements elsewhere in Great Britain.
Specific evaluation was further required by the client on:
- The adequacy of the CP in terms of organisational structures - HQ and overarching command and control structures - and operational issues
- The flexibility of the CP in terms of it supporting response to a variety of FMD outbreak scenarios.
C. Methods
Analytic Red has strictly adhered to the Scottish Government's requirement for "all aspects of the plan to be analysed and evaluated to ensure that it is fit for purpose" (Source: Schedule 2: Research Specification). Analytic Red has completed a desk-based review of the CP, supplemented by consultation with operational partners and others in Scotland and London (see Annex B). The review also took account of the various lessons learned aspects of inquiries following the 2001 outbreak (see Annex A).
Analytic Red reviewed the FMD Contingency Plan through the deployment of a proprietary approach. Our approach - developed and refined in the review of over one hundred and fifty contingency, continuity or emergency plans and processes - focuses on the ability of a plan to meet the fundamental processes of decision-making. It is only if a plan has the capacity to support the taking of the highest quality of decisions that it can be said to be fit-for-purpose.
These fundamental processes comprise Information Gathering; Assessment of the Situation; Decision-Making; Action and Monitoring and Communication and - in some form - should have been assured for all elements of the response.
Information Gathering refers to the means by which information is acquired and processed in order that decision-makers are provided with a valid Assessment of the Situation. This Assessment is then drawn upon in the Decision-Making process. Here, a group collectively reflects on the Assessment - and other information - to make timely, proportionate and sustainable decisions. These decisions are then executed and tracked through an Action and Monitoring activity. In turn, the Communication function delivers key information to internal and external stakeholders (staff, stakeholders, operational partners, etc). This sequence should be seen as a continuous process whereby any change in information is reflected by a timely change in decision-making.
These inter-dependent processes require infrastructure to be in place. This infrastructure includes all of the skilled people tasked to work within each process, the technology they need to achieve their tasks and specialised (e.g. critical information) and mundane resources (e.g. food and drink).
D. A National Contingency Plan for FMD
A national contingency plan should set out the processes which will be employed to enable the Scottish Government to lead the response to a suspected or confirmed outbreak of FMD. In 2002, the Scottish Executive stated that "in addition to revising the existing operational contingency plans in the light of experience, a national contingency plan at the Scotland level is currently being developed" (Foot and Mouth Disease in Scotland 2002: 27). The CP is currently referenced by the Scottish Government: "national plans have been, or are being, developed. For example, plans will include foot-and-mouth outbreak" (Source: Preparing Scotland, 2007: 3.4.19).
Such a plan would be commonly understood as detailing the strategic management of all aspects of a crisis or emergency, capturing interfaces and dependencies with relevant structures, organisations and plans. The role at the strategic level is to support and enable operational teams to manage an event through the provision of resources and capabilities as well as providing any necessary co-ordination. The aforementioned document sets out the context in which a national plan for a specific contingency fits:
Figure 1 (Source: Ibid.: 4.1.3).
E. Key Finding
Scotland's FMD Contingency Plan does not meet the fundamental principles required of a national plan for the strategic management of all aspects of a disease outbreak.
F. Rationale for Key Finding
The CP falls short of the aspirations that it specifies. In summary, it lacks:
- Appropriate content and structure for the strategic management of a disease outbreak
- Verified capacity to deal with a range of scales and patterns of a disease outbreak
- Proven ability to deliver an immediate response to all aspects of a disease outbreak
- Deployable policy and operational responses likely to be introduced in a major outbreak.
The main basis for these failings arises from the CP's lack of fundamental elements, in particular an absence of Strategic Objectives and Planning Assumptions.
G. Conclusions & Recommendations
C1 The CP is not an effective national plan for managing all aspects of an FMD outbreak
R1 The CP should be rewritten as a national plan for the strategic management of FMD outbreaks
R2 The CP should be based on agreed Strategic Priorities and Planning Assumptions
R3 The CP should regard an outbreak of FMD as a crisis and focus the national response around Scotland's crisis machinery
R4 The refined CP should be co-operatively designed and robustly tested with all disease control and wider impact stakeholders
R5 The CP should incorporate work undertaken following acceptance of recommendations from previous FMD inquiries, reviews and consultations
R6 The CP should be benchmarked against the requirements of international and domestic legislation, amongst other drivers.
C2 The CP does not adequately support disease control decisions in the context of wider considerations of impact, cost and benefit
R7 Future versions of the CP must support decision-making that simultaneously considers disease control options against wider impacts
C3 The CP is not a resource for specified users or target audiences
R8 Future versions of the CP are a resource for users and target audiences both within and outwith the Scottish Government.
H. A Model Process for Transforming the Contingency Plan
Whilst our findings are radical, ours is not a counsel of despair. Analytic Red recommends that the current CP is urgently transformed into a reliable and effective document by drawing on:
1. Work undertaken following the then Scottish Executive's acceptance of the findings of a number of inquiries, consultations and reviews around previous FMD outbreaks;
2. The knowledge and experience held by those consulted as part of this project;
3. A needs analysis of the key users of and target audiences for the CP, and
4. Civil contingencies planning expertise elsewhere in the Scottish Government and UK Government.
Analytic Red has developed a model process to achieve this end for consideration by the Scottish Government (see Figure 2, overleaf).
Figure 2: A Model Process for Transforming Scotland's Contingency Plan for FMD
