Not sure, but seams it may be working for the Australians
From what I can tell it will not effect every one
Plans being drawn up by Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith will see the 120,000 problem families targeted with Oyster-style cards which can only be used in certain shops.
For me' at a time when the RSPCA are pleading poverty, this sum of money wasted is a disgrace
RSPCA expects to cut more than 130 jobs, mostly in administration and support roles, citing its increasing staff pension fund deficit as a key reason.
In a statement released last week, the animal welfare charity said the charity was under pressure from rising fuel costs and veterinary bills; a drop in donations and an increase in call-centre workload. In 2007, the charity took 21,481 calls about abandoned animals. In 2011, the total had leapt to 28,162, a 31 per cent rise over five years.
RPSCA had already budgeted to spend almost £10m less in 2011 than in 2009. But it cited the impact of inflation, and a growing staff pension fund deficit caused by flat investment returns for its new decision on staff levels.
According to the charity’s most recent accounts, in 2010 its overall pension deficit increased by £4m to In the same year, its wage bill was It had an income of , and spent
The charity is undergoing a staffing review. This is likely to mean restructuring and a reduction of more than 130 posts, particularly in administration and support roles although staff at all levels could be affected. However, the 1,000 or so frontline staff including RSPCA inspectors, animal welfare officers and animal collection officers, as well as workers at hospitals, wildlife and animal rehoming centres, will be protected.
Chief executive Gavin Grant said: “The RSPCA is under pressure like never before. Ever-larger numbers of animals are falling victim to abuse and abandonment in part due to the economic climate.
David Cameron's hunt convicted as judge questions RSPCA's £330,000 prosecution costs
Is it moraly correct for the RSPCA to spend nearly £300,000 of donated, charitable money on a prosecution?
Barnfield, of Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, was fined £250 for each charge, totalling £1,000, and ordered to pay costs of £2,000. Sumner, of Salperton, Gloucestershire, was fined a total of £1,800 with costs of £2,500. The Heythrop Hunt Limited was fined a total of £4000 with £15,000 costs. All three were ordered to pay a £15 victim surcharge.
I believe what the RSPCA have done to be immoral, my thinking falls more in line with what the judge had to say
A judge has questioned the “quite staggering” amount of money the RSPCA spent pursuing the prosecution of a hunt, saying that the money may have been more “usefully employed”.
The District Judge Tim Pattinson made the comments after the charity’s successful prosecution of the Prime Minister’s local hunt.
He fined the Heythrop hunt and its members £6,800, but then rounded on the RSPCA for laying out £330,000 to bring the case – 10 times the defence costs.
“Members of the public may feel that RSPCA funds can be more usefully employed,” he told Oxford Magistrates' Court.
“It is not for me to express an opinion but I merely flag it up but I do find it to be a quite staggering figure.”
Neil, you are correct, that was more my view, at this stage the proposed culls are trials, experimental, and not something rolled out across the country in all bovine TB affected areas. We will have to see what effect this has.
Living, well more visiting these days, in the countryside, I hear much about these things, peoples views, many of these people words carry much weight with me. The words of a well respected farmer below;
As one who has spent the last 80 years living & farming in the country, I have seen it all happen. The successful efforts of the Ministry of Agriculture & farmers to eradicate bovine TB (see the table I posted above) & then the disastrous upsurge to an uncontrolled badger population leading to a tragic negation of years of work & the reappearance of the Bovine TB problem, the decimation of much of our other wildlife & a ridiculous over population of badgers limited only by disease & starvation .
These words carry great weight with me, and can be heard over and over by those with experience of such things. Had we continued the gassing protocols originally used, none of this would be necessary at all, and we might now be merely discussing contraceptive vaccines to limit badger populations.
I suspect what will happen in time is the licenced, Wholesale gassing of setts across a very large area of countryside over a period of years, with a view to locally extincting the main reservoir host of bovine TB. There will then need to be follow-up monitoring done to identify and destroy any remaining hot-spots. Then we can look at contraceptive vaccines to limit badger populations.
You may disagree, but I suspect this is what will be required and what will happen
