§ Mr. ColvinTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was the average(a) cost of a dairy inspection, (b) duration of a visit for a dairy inspection and (c) number of visits each inspector carried out per day, for the last year for which figures are available.
§ Mr. Donald ThompsonThe information is not available in the form requested. However, the charge of £90 reflects the total cost of enforcing the milk and dairies regulations, and the salary and travelling costs of the dairy husbandry staff who carry out farm visits (including follow-up visits which are not chargeable) account for approximately half of this sum.
The duration of routine dairy husbandry visits varies and it is not possible to provide a meaningful average.
Dairy husbandry advisers achieve between three and four visits per day, but this is an average. In practice they aim to devote complete days to farm visiting (during which they normally cover five farms) after which between one third and one half of a day is required for writing up the results and preparing for the next block of visits.