Registration and Licensing of Animal Sanctuaries and Rehoming Activities in Scotland

Although there may be concerns over financial implications for very small/poorly funded rescues, as a veterinary surgeon I have often seen the consequences of well-meaning individuals who open unregulated rescue operations. This mainly results in individuals taking on too many animals than are appropriate for them to take care of, resulting in poor nutrition, healthcare and management of the animals in their care. In order to ensure that basic needs are met for rescued animals I believe that regulation and proper enforcement of standards are essential to avoid welfare crises that may inadvertently be created by well-intentioned individuals. In addition, I believe that basic needs must be enforced in order to preserve the psychological health of animals in order for more successful rehoming and re-integration with a domestic environment. Poor or non-regulation of numbers of animals and husbandry may result in poor behavioural management and result in anxiety and future behavioural issues when rehomed.
Considering that the ultimate aim of rescue and rehoming centres is to preserve animal welfare and support their ongoing quality of life, I believe that the need for regulation is of top priority.

I believe that licensing is appropriate in all cases, as regardless of the number of animals it needs to be made clear about acceptable standards of animal husbandry/keeping. Plus, small organisations always have the potential to grow. How often would checks be done on the number of animals in possession of a rescuer? I am aware of several cases (seen in veterinary practice) where individuals have started with small numbers of animals, and then quickly escalated despite lack of resources. These situations are where I have seen fairly pressing animal welfare issues (occurs quite commonly in rabbit rescue in my experience).

I think that thresholds should be the same for all species, although if there is the potential for resources to be evaluated at time of registration/licensing, this could possibly factor into such decisions. For example, if there was demonstrable evidence of good facilities, financial stability, and the potential to keep a larger volume of animals well, but the rescue had a small number of animals, this could perhaps factor into the decision.

It is important for large organisations to have a coordinated approach across all of their smaller centres, and these groups tend to have well established standards of care across their network.

I think it would be good for expert bodies with experience of rescue/rehoming, but outwith of the field itself ie expert veterinary surgeons to carry out inspections. I think that for truly objective evaluation in line with appropriate welfare standards, independent inspectors should not be involved in organisations which have their own rehoming centres.

I do think that expert knowledge in the field of animal care is required as animal welfare is a complicated field. Local authorities likely to not have this knowledge level to ensure that premises are appropriate, other than basic hygeine/safety etc.

An individual with the capability of committing such crimes, especially animal welfare offences, is not appropriate to register for an animal sanctuary.
The problem would be monitoring such individuals, as if they were indeed allowed to run such premises, great care would need to be taken to ensure that they did not repeat similar animal welfare offences or that they did not commit financial crimes depriving rescues of resources. This level of monitoring may not be feasible without financial input which could be better diverted elsewhere.

I believe that individuals should have to demonstrate thorough knowledge of animal welfare acts, appropriate standards for care, species knowledge etc. I am in favour of formal assessment of this knowledge as I have seen, as a veterinary surgeon, many animal welfare issues resulting from lack of awareness of the above. The general public are expected to provide basic duty of care for their animals, so I believe individuals operating on a more formal basis of animal keeping need to adhere to the appropriate standards in a formally assessed way.

I agree that inspectors/expert bodies should be remunerated for their time and input. I also think that each inspection should be charged, and premises with welfare shortcomings should be subject to more frequent visits. This may incentivise the maintenance of higher standards in rescue centres. I also think that there should be a degree of flexibility in payment, especially for smaller rescues which may have poorer standards and may be subject to the above situation.

Scottish government should set standard fees. A uniform approach should be made in this situation. Considerations could be made for deprived or poorly affluent areas?

A reasonable cost would include mileage, time and a low-moderate hourly rate for time spent at the premises.

I agree, but would be inclined to suggest that licences do not last more than two years, as rescue situations can change fairly quickly depending on available finances and resources.

I am unsure about this point - unsure about the level of knowledge of animal welfare of local authority staff, although I appreciate standards would likely be set by those with expert knowledge. Ideally there would be a high level of relevant knowledge in any staff dealing with regulation and enforcement.

I believe that SSPCA staff have the level of knowledge and experience for enforcement of these principles.

It would be good to provide case examples of licensed facilities to the public in case individuals want to set up small rescue operations, in order to give individuals an idea of what standards need to be kept for licensing purposes (in order to avoid wastage of resources/finances when these standards can't be met by the individual).
I think recording of licensed premises should be kept in order to aid monitoring, re-licensing and enforcement.

I think a charge should be made for information to the general public, but they should be made aware of its existence.

Unsure - it depends what is meant by minor irregularities. Suspension is probably the best of these options as it gives the rescue a chance to remedy any shortcomings in duty of care without having licenses revoked, which may require a big financial input to resolve.

I think that welfare scientists and veterinary bodies should be consulted to review these standards in the context of licensing rescue/rehoming organisations. Welfare knowledge is continually changing and expanded upon, as is knowledge of shelter medicine.

I think charges should be on an appropriate scale in line with the severity of non-compliance as it applies to the welfare of the animals.

Particularly in the case of rehoming organisations, I think that outcome measures ie success of rehoming, rate of return to rehoming center, etc should be measured. If there is evidence of consistent behavioural problems in rehomed animals, it is worth considering evaluation of psychological effects of the premises.

I think that behavioural needs are important to emphasise with regards to regulation and legislation, but easily overlooked.