Application of Risk Analysis to official controls within Department of Agriculture, Fisheries & Food (DAFF)Ireland

Rob Doyle

Background

• DAFF is one of a number of competent Authorities with responsibility for Public Health, Animal Health and Animal Welfare in Ireland.

• In areas of Public Health, DAFF operates under service contract to the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI)

• The information in this presentation refers to controls carried out by the State Veterinary Service.

Chief Veterinary Officer

Veterinary publicHealth

Animal Health and Welfare

Red Meat White Meat

VeterinaryInternational

andEU Trade

ERADEradication

Of Animal

Diseases

VeterinaryMedicines. Residues.

Animal Breeding

Animal Byproducts

TSEs

Animal Welfare

Background

• Prior to Regulation 882/2004, Official Controls were normally carried out on a ‘number/year’ basis.

• Controls were risk-assessed at local level.

• No standard guidelines for assessing risk.

Risk Analysis• Now risk based controls are increasingly

undertaken as required by Article 3 of Reg (EC) No 882/2004.

Why??

– FVO and internal audits.– Decreasing resources– Political intention to reduce ‘red tape’

• However still no defined system for risk assessment!!

New System for Risk assessing OC.(Under development)

1. Risk Assessment Step: Macro Level

2. Risk Management Step: Sector Level

3. Operator Selection: Selection of individual operators for inspection.

Risk Assessment Step

• DAFF undertakes a large variety of Official Controls.

• Decided to assess risk at ‘ industry level’.

• potential national significance of ceasing carrying out that Official Control

• Common set of parameters to evaluate each Official Control against.

Parameters evaluated against.

– Risk to Public Health– Risk to Animal Health & Welfare– Financial risk to Exchequer– Direct Cost to Industry– Indirect cost to Industry– Reputational risk to DAFF

Parameter Weighting

Parameter Weighting

Public health 32.5%

Animal health and Welfare 20%

Indirect cost to industry 17.5%

DAFF Reputation 12%

Direct cost to industry 9%

Cost to Exchequer 9%

Scoring and weighting

• Each OC given a score for each parameter

»0 = No risk

»4 = Very high risk

• Overall risk score for that control calculated using the weighting.

Prioritisation of OC

• Official Controls prioritised on the basis of risk scores, with the following inspection frequencies.

• 4 priority levels with priority 1 indicating the highest risk

Inspection frequency by priority

• Priority 1: Biannual inspections to all premises;

• Priority 2: Annual Inspections to all premises;

• Priority 3: 50% of Premises inspected annually;

• Priority 4: 20% of Premises inspected annually.

Risk Management Step

• Second step in this process

• Sectoral level• Each premises type was considered in

this step using a number of criteria.

• Risk Priority identified during the Risk Assessment step

• Resource Consideration needed (based on number of operators)

• Level of Non-Compliance in the previous year

• Volume of material typically handled per operator/plant

• Age of this Industry or Length of Official Control of this industry

Operator Selection

• 3rd Step in the process.

• The numbers of operators to be inspected is based on the cumulative calculation derived from the risk assessment and risk management steps above

Progress

• This process has been applied to 2011 OC carried out by ABP Division

• Now intended to extend the format to other Sectors within DAFF

Challenges

• Possible confounder =‘Inputter bias’

• Possible Solution = team-based input rather than individual

• Political and trade implications of effective fully risk based controls.

• Necessity of ensuring that risk parameters are effective

Next Steps

• Start use in other divisions

• Review of system to ensure effectiveness.

Acknowledgements

• Pat Flanagan SSVI, head of SVSIAG

• Liam Barry VI. ABP Division.