Biosecurity Incidents: Planning and Risk Management for
Livestock Diseases
1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1.1 Introduction
Victoria has an exceptional global
reputation for its safe ‘clean’ food. This has played an important
role in the profitable growth of jobs, investments and exports for
the state’s agricultural production. Biosecurity standards have a
crucial role in protecting agricultural industries and in retaining
market access and market competitiveness. The social, economic and
trade consequences of failed biosecurity have been demonstrated by
the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in the UK and, more
recently, avian influenza in Asia.
Expanding trade and travel over national
and international boundaries and changing weather patterns increase
the risk of exotic diseases being introduced to Australia. The
rapid movement of goods and people and an increasingly demanding
market environment present significant challenges for Victoria's
primary industries.
In Victoria, the Department of Primary
Industries (DPI) is the key agency involved in animal health and
welfare. DPI is listed as the control agency for the prevention of,
response to, and recovery from, plant and animal diseases.
Biosecurity Victoria (BV) is the division within DPI responsible
for delivering enhanced biosecurity. The Department of Human
Services (DHS) is the lead agency for responding to, and recovering
from, a human pandemic or epidemic, including zoonotic diseases
affecting human health.
This audit assessed whether the
Department of Primary Industries (DPI) effectively manages
biosecurity pests and disease risks for Victoria’s livestock and
the associated risks to human health, the economy and trade.
The audit considered how well DPI
responds to livestock disease incidents, DPI’s preparedness to
respond to a disease outbreak and the effectiveness of DPI
approaches to prevention and early detection. With a view to
assessing the readiness to respond to zoonosis, the interface
between DPI and DHS was also examined. In addition, we assessed
DPI’s performance monitoring and reporting systems and its approach
to continuous improvement.
1.2 Key findings
DPI’s performance against the National
Animal Health Performance Standards and the views expressed by key
national and state bodies support the finding that DPI is leading
other jurisdictions in biosecurity risk management.
DPI’s planning and risk management
systems for managing biosecurity for livestock diseases are well
developed. The planning framework is well articulated, based on
clear and relevant objectives and links across the organisation
from strategic to business plans. Formal risk management processes
are comprehensively applied to biosecurity and comply with, or are
similar to, the Australian Standard for risk management (AS
4630).
The recent handling of the equine
influenza threat, intermittent outbreaks of anthrax and endemic
zoonoses provide overall assurance that DPI has managed biosecurity
incidents successfully. DPI’s performance in national and state
simulation exercises conducted over the past six years also
indicate that DPI gives appropriate attention to ensuring
preparedness to deal with biosecurity incidents.
DPI and DHS have a sound and
collaborative working relationship. The agencies have participated
in exercises to support preparedness to respond to zoonoses and
regularly manage endemic zoonotic disease outbreaks
effectively.
DPI’s work in surveillance, tracing
systems, information technology and training also demonstrate the
priority that DPI has placed on biosecurity incident management and
the investment made to support DPI’s preparedness to respond to
incursions.
DPI’s performance monitoring and
reporting is able to provide relevant information with respect to
the achievement of objectives and the adequacy of biosecurity
incident management. Regular review and evaluation of DPI’s
preparedness for and management of emergency animal disease
incidents are evidence of a continuous improvement approach.
Notwithstanding these overall positive
findings, DPI faces significant challenges in biosecurity risk
management in the future. DPI will need to address a number of
critical areas to ensure Victoria is well placed to deal with the
predicted increase in incidence of biosecurity incursions and the
complexities presented by new and emerging biosecurity threats.
To meet these challenges DPI should
improve its forward planning capacity, increase the emphasis on
prevention, surveillance and early detection, improve planning for
capacity and capability, strategically harness the capacity of the
farming community and industry in prevention, surveillance, early
detection and response and ensure better internal coordination and
communication within DPI.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)
between DPI and DHS to formalise the relationship is warranted
given the seriousness of zoonotic risks, the predicted incident
increase and the potential impact on human health, economy and
trade.
1.3 Recommendations
DPI’s planning and risk management framework for managing
biosecurity incidents
DPI should broaden the focus of its
planning for biosecurity to include a longer term horizon and
demonstrate closer alignment with national planning frameworks. To
support this DPI should:
- apply a wider range of planning models and
methods including scenario-based planning for long-term planning
exercises
- establish a departmental planning protocol to
parallel that applying to risk management and specify that the
output from risk management processes be included in environmental
scanning undertaken as part of the planning within each business
unit of DPI
- take an active role in the
development of the national AUSBIOSEC framework as it will play a
key contextual role in future DPI and Biosecurity Victoria (BV)
planning. (Recommendation 3.1)
- DPI should more closely align planning and
risk management processes to support its decision-making and
response to changing priorities, capacity, capability and
investment. (Recommendation 3.2)
Prevention and early detection
DPI should develop a strategy to deliver
an integrated and coordinated approach to prevention and early
detection across the livestock value chain. As part of the strategy
DPI should:
- target high risk groups
- introduce legislation to clarify industry roles
and responsibilities with respect to biosecurity practice and
performance standards
- build industry and on-farm capacity to prevent
and detect diseases early through incorporating biosecurity
principles into QA programs and introducing trigger reporting
requirements
- review the purpose, roles and responsibilities
of existing consultative structures to support close alignment with
objectives for improved biosecurity
- promote a close working relationship between
policy, program development and operational arms dealing with
livestock diseases
- give DPI regional extension staff an expanded
role to improve awareness and engagement in local
communities. (Recommendation 4.1)
DPI should develop a surveillance
strategy with agreed goals and a comprehensive, integrated approach
to surveillance across the livestock value chain. The surveillance
strategy should:
- define objectives, roles and
responsibilities, performance targets, timelines, and resource
investment
- allow surveillance program priorities to be
altered to meet changing risk profiles
- include evaluation of
effectiveness.(Recommendation 4.2)
Emergency response and preparedness
To improve response preparedness, DPI
should clearly link the selection of simulation exercises to the
risk management framework to target coverage of high risks.
(Recommendation 5.1)
To support increased effectiveness in EAD
(Emergency Animal Disease) response management DPI should:
- develop a strategy to improve capacity and
capability
- refine and target the communication strategy to
clearly outline the key steps, processes and timing to ensure early
warning and smooth delivery of communications to all relevant
stakeholders and the community
- ensure systematic review and update of Manual of
Procedures and Standard Operating Procedures
- work with DHS to establish a more systematic
approach to developing protocols for managing specific
zoonoses. (Recommendation 5.2)
DPI should develop an MOU with DHS that
capitalises on and strengthens the current good working
relationship to support joint forward planning and risk management
and mitigates against relationship failure in the event of
leadership change. The MOU should clarify:
- objectives and purpose
- roles and responsibilities
- joint planning arrangements and risk management
procedures
- document operational procedures
- internal and external joint communication
strategies to ensure messages are in unison with health and primary
industry objectives
- cost sharing arrangements for management of a
zoonotic EAD
- joint training and capability development
- review and evaluation of performance.
(Recommendation 5.3)
DPI should formalise the approach and
framework for evaluating simulation exercises and response to EAD
incidents with guidelines to define the nature of the review
process. This should include:
- developing a standardised internal evaluation
framework to provide guidelines on the review process
- introducing periodic external evaluations of
simulation exercises to enable comparison over time and to
demonstrate independence and rigour
- developing guidelines for commissioning external
evaluations of response to EAD incidents
- recording the implementation of recommendations
from simulation exercises and response to EAD incidents
- introducing a system-level review of lessons
learned. (Recommendation 5.4)
Performance monitoring, reporting and continuous
improvement
BV should enhance controls to provide
assurance regarding data integrity. This process should
include:
- working with local government to provide
accurate and complete property data across the state
- enhancing processes for ensuring consistent
notification of disease events across regions
- reviewing all processes related to the
collation, input, processing, output and protection of data to
improve the integrity of the system.
(Recommendation 6.1)
RESPONSE by Acting Secretary,
Department of Primary Industries
The Department of Primary Industries
(DPI) welcomes the Victorian Auditor General’s Office (VAGO) report
on Biosecurity Incidents: planning and risk management for the
livestock diseases.
Agriculture is a significant
contributor to Victoria’s economic wealth and social well-being. As
acknowledged by the report, Victoria has an exceptional global
reputation for its safe ‘clean’ food, which has played an important
role in the profitable growth of jobs, investments and exports for
the State’s agricultural production. The ability to effectively
monitor, detect and respond to animal and plant disease and pest
threats has been central to securing this position, giving
consumers assurance and confidence in the food they eat.
Biosecurity standards play a crucial role in enhancing and
protecting the success of our agricultural industries.
Our agriculture industries, however, are
experiencing a period of unprecedented change. Today’s fast
changing and increasingly demanding market environment creates a
number of emerging challenges for Victoria’s primary industries
that have the potential to impact on our social; economic and
environmental assets, Expanding trade over national and
international boundaries, Australia’s mobile population, climate
change and e-commerce are just some of the trends that increase the
risk of exotic diseases being introduced to plants and
animals.
DPI is acutely aware of the increased
need to be vigilant in tackling the consequences of these
activities. As recognised by the report, planning for and managing
biosecurity incidents is complex and challenging, requiring a
strong forward planning capability and an aptitude to harness the
capacity of the fanning businesses and food industry in prevention,
surveillance, early detection and response activities.
Your desire to review DPI’s planning
and risk management approaches to livestock diseases further
crystallises the importance of ‘prevention’ as a key biosecurity
management approach. Victoria’s recent success in keeping the State
free of Equine Influenza is a demonstration of the importance of
this approach. If Equine Influenza had entered Victoria in 2007,
before being subsequently eradicated, the aggregate costs would
have been $223m-$273m; an increase of $131m-$181m over the
estimated costs actually incurred in 2007.
While the VAGO report acknowledges that
DPI is a national leader in biosecurity risk management for
livestock diseases, DPI believes in a continuous improvement
approach to planning and risk management for biosecurity. This is
why DPI is currently developing a Biosecurity Strategy for Victoria
in which it will undertake an assessment of critical gaps that
government is currently exposed to and focus on developing the
relationship between government, industry and community in defining
their roles and responsibilities. A new risk based approach will
drive the development of this strategy, which will take into
account economic, environment and social values.
There will undoubtedly be resourcing
implications in building an enhanced capacity and capability within
DPI to meet the emerging challenges highlighted in the report. It
is therefore intended that the development of strategy will be
supported by a 2009/10 Expenditure Review Committee bid — A new
approach to biosecurity in Victoria.
It is pleasing to see that the
recommendations in the report further support the need for the
development of the Strategy and the requirement for a long-term
investment in biosecurity management in order to position Victoria
to meet the challenges of managing new and emerging biological
threats.
In addition to the development of the
strategy, DPI has recently undertaken, under the auspices of the
State Mitigation Committee, to assess the risks to Victoria of an
Emergency Animal Disease (EAD). The workshop was a first, in that
it drew on the expertise of state and national government bodies,
along with key industry leaders. A residual risk curve for EAD was
generated using Victorian State Emergency Risk assessment
methodology. This assessment provides a useful tool to enable DPI
to decide on the allocation of resources to mitigate key emergency
risks.
In conclusion, this audit has provided
valuable input into DPI’s planning and risk management for
livestock diseases. More broadly, many of the principles
underpinning the recommendations will be useful in improving DPI’s
approach to biosecurity, in its broadest sense.