Major ICT issues resolved, says animal health agency

The Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency has said that it has resolved all the major ICT issues it experienced last year as part of its business reform programme. The agency's comments were a response to a National Audit Office (NAO) report on the programme. The programme was designed to improve the quality of data, upgrade ICT, standardise and automate processes, and enable private vets to submit bovine tuberculosis tests online. There were problems with the implementation of the agency's new ICT, however, and it is now two years behind schedule, the NAO found. "The ICT supporting the agency's management of bovine TB went live three months late in October 2011, and the agency immediately faced some issues," the auditor said. It found that only 11 of the 497 private veterinary practices signed up to submit test results online are doing so. A spokesman for the agency said: "The delay in completion is due to a combination of having an overly optimistic timeframe at the beginning of the programme, necessary changes to the scope of the programme during its lifetime and delays in developing and releasing some of the ICT upgrades." He added that the agency is confident that its business reform programme will deliver an improvement in its ability to manage animal health and welfare risks, as well as delivering cost savings. The NAO said that the final stages of the business reform programme are critical for securing the full benefits of the new ICT. This includes a reduction in the agency's reliance on "risky legacy ICT systems" whose capability of recovering in an emergency is not certain. The agency, which is charged by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) with preventing the outbreak of animal disease, began the programme in 2006. It had cost £103m up to the end of last year. This article is published by Guardian Professional . Join the Guardian Public Leaders Network free to receive regular emails on the issues at the top of the professional agenda.