Research and analysis

Badger control policy: value for money analysis 2019

Updated 28 October 2022

1. Summary

1.1 Background

The 2011 Impact Assessment^{[footnote 1]} on licensed badger control to address tuberculosis (TB) in cattle found that the costs were likely to marginally outweigh the financial benefits but with considerable uncertainty. This was particularly the case with policing costs where the weight given to such considerations was a matter of judgement for Ministers.

At the time no alternative option offered better value for money in the short to medium term, against a situation where the incidence of TB in cattle continued to rise, along with the costs to both government and farmers of dealing with it.

Piloting industry-led controlled shooting of badgers in Gloucestershire and Somerset in 2013 as a method of controlling TB in cattle was considered worthwhile to test assumptions around effectiveness, humaneness and safety and to improve our understanding of the potential long term cost-effectiveness of the approach. These pilots confirmed the assumptions and since 2013 licensed badger control has continued in Gloucestershire and Somerset, and was extended to Dorset in 2015. In 2016 seven additional areas were introduced, and between 2017 and 2018 a further twenty one areas were added, increasing momentum on the wider implementation of the policy.

For 2019 Badger Control will be extended to eleven additional areas, in the form of intensive culling in the High Risk and Edge Areas.

1.2 Supplementary culling summary

Licensed supplementary culling can take place in an area after successful completion of an intensive cull and is intended to maintain the predicted disease control benefits for a longer period of time. Supplementary culling should maintain the badger population at that achieved during the intensive cull, and therefore also keep the disease risk from wildlife in the area at a low level.

Supplementary culling began in Somerset and Gloucestershire in 2017 and in Dorset in 2019, it usually follows intensive culling in all other areas where an effective intensive cull has been completed.

1.3 Costs and benefits of extending the current approach to a further 11 Intensive Culling^{[footnote 2]} areas

Each new cull area is expected to deliver net benefits of between -£500,000 and £2.2 million per area, with a central estimate of approximately £1.1 million. This includes costs accrued over four years of culling and benefits accrued over eleven years in line with results from the Randomised Badger Control Trial (RBCT).

The future costs to government have been estimated at £500,000 per area over four years.

Industry costs have been estimated at £130,000 per area over four years.

The total monetised benefits are estimated to be around £420,000 and £2.85 million per area over eleven years, with a central estimate of £1.75 million. This is based on the results of the RBCT.

1.4 Uncertainties

The requirement for policing has been a feature of the policy to date to ensure a safe cull. Extending to eleven new areas will require a similar level of policing, at least in their initial year. However, police forces have consolidated their command and control structure for operations this year to reduce costs. Over time, following further successful badger control operations and minimising the potential for security incidents, we assume policing costs for new additional areas will decline to much lower levels.

The costs per area to government and industry presented here are lower than those observed in the 31 badger control areas to date. Costs to government per area are slightly lower due to fixed costs being spread over a higher number of culling areas. Costs to industry are assumed to fall as lessons learnt over the last four years lead to efficiencies and improvements in operational delivery.

In addition, the number of breakdowns per Km2 over the past 3 years in the new culling areas (i.e. those starting in 2019) and the growth rate in TB incidence (compared to the assumed baseline) are both respectively lower than what was assumed in 2018^{[footnote 3]}. The benefits per area are therefore assumed to be lower, as the control strategy is less beneficial if the baseline in TB incidence is lower.

The range in the quantified benefits takes account of scientific uncertainty around the impact of an effective cull in line with the RBCT. Any changes to the way badger control is delivered, the size of the control area, density of cattle or the baseline levels of TB will add further uncertainty which could mean greater or lower quantified benefits than those estimated here.

2. Analysis of the costs and benefits of extending badger control in 2019

Defra’s 2011 Impact Assessment set out the expected costs and benefits of licensed badger control to reduce TB in cattle. In 2013, licensed badger control was introduced in areas of Gloucestershire and Somerset, extended to Dorset in 2015 and then extended to a further twenty-eight areas between 2016, 2017 and 2018. Based on this experience, this annex sets out an assessment of the costs and benefits of extending intensive culling to eleven further areas and continuing supplementary culling in Somerset, Gloucestershire and Dorset in 2019. Except where stated, all quantified costs and benefits per control area are presented in “present value” terms, which is calculated using a discount rate of 3.5% in line with HM Treasury Green Book guidance. Table 1 illustrates the roll out over time.

Table 1: Roll out of badger control areas over time

Year	Number of areas badger control introduced
2013	2
2014	0
2015	1
2016	7
2017	11
2018	10
2019	11

2.1 The benefits of badger control

The benefits of badger control are the net reduction in the level of TB in cattle herds within and around control areas as a result of the policy. They are estimated based on the impact of intensive culling observed in the RBCT over 11 years from the start of badger control^{[footnote 4]} compared to a ‘no intervention’ scenario. These benefits are valued by the savings in disease control costs to farmers and Defra (i.e. taxpayers) through avoided cases of TB in cattle (breakdowns^{[footnote 5]}).

Table 2: Estimated impact of badger control on the number of confirmed new TB incidents (compared to the baseline)

	Pessimistic	Central	Optimistic
Within badger control areas:
- during cull (years 1-4)	-12.4%	-23.2%	-32.7%
- post cull (years 5-11)	-10.9%	-25.9%	-38.4%
Outside badger control areas (up to 2km from the boundary)
- during cull (years 1-4)	+56.0%	+24.5%	-0.6%
- post cull (years 5-11)	+26.4%	-6.8%	-31.2%

The benefits of supplementary culling

The RBCT study quantified the benefits of Intensive Culling over an eleven year period (four years during the cull and a further seven years after the cull). The role of supplementary culling will be to preserve the benefits of intensive culling by maintaining the badger population at a similar or lower level than that achieved at the end of an effective intensive cull.

Quantifying the average cost of a breakdown

A TB breakdown results in significant cost for both government and farmers as a result of disease control actions. The main control actions involve restricting movements of cattle from the herd, whole herd testing of cattle, slaughter of any cattle that react to the test and repeated testing and slaughter until the herd is cleared. The estimated average cost of a breakdown used in this assessment is £19,410 split roughly equally between farmers and government. In practice there is a wide range in the scale, duration and cost of breakdowns. Many are minor but a small proportion are major, costly to farmers and government, and extremely disruptive to farm businesses. This assessment uses the average cost of a breakdown, but recognises the uncertainty surrounding this estimate.

Table 3: Estimated average cost of a confirmed new TB breakdown in the High Risk Area of England (£, 2018 prices)

	Government	Farmers	Total
Testing	£2,169	£2,663	£4,832
Slaughter costs	£6,646	£7,137	£13,784
Restrictions and Isolation	£0	£503	£503
Administration	£291	£0	£291
TOTAL	£9,107	£10,303	£19,410

If the benefits of badger control in a new area are in line with the reduction in the level of TB observed over 11 years in the RBCT, they would be between £400,000 and £2.9 million split between farmers and government. The central estimate is £1.8 million.

These estimates are based on badger control taking place over an area of 632km2 (the average size of the new areas in 2019) in the high risk area (HRA) of England with a declining baseline of new TB incidents of 0.58% per year. Each incident prevented due to badger control is valued according to the average cost of a breakdown in the HRA. Physical values on the duration and size of breakdowns are taken from the Animal and Plants Health Agency’s (APHA) annual surveillance report. Costs to Defra are taken from appropriate financial sources in APHA whilst costs to farmers are estimated using a methodology established by Reading University^{[footnote 6]}, inflated using appropriate price indices. All values expressed are in 2019 prices. See Table 8 for a list of the main assumptions and sources used.

Qualitative evidence suggests that bovine TB can cause significant stress and ill health among the farming population. However, the impact of such stress is difficult to quantify or value. Studies looking at the social impacts of bovine TB have found self-reported stress among farmers. For example^{[footnote 7]}, from a sample of 50 farmers interviewed in the South-West, 30 said their farm’s TB breakdown had affected their own daily life, 20 that of their family or household, 10 their employees. Evidence suggests that a long period of time under movement restrictions is a significant contributor to stress across all farming groups. A standard questionnaire designed to identify psychiatric ill health found that farmers that have been under TB movement restrictions for a long period of time showed significantly higher levels of stress than farmers who had not experienced a TB herd breakdown.

2.2 The costs of badger control

To industry

The main costs of badger control to farmer-led companies are surveying, preparation and coordination which includes communication, planning, support, management and administration; and delivery of badger control through a combination of controlled shooting and cage trapping and shooting, which includes equipment and manpower.

Based on experience over the last few years and from discussions with farmers over the expected costs to new areas, the total cost to farmers of badger control over four years is estimated at £140,000 per area in the central case.

Table 4: Estimated cost to farmers per licensed area (£thousands)

	Year 1	Year 2	Year 3	Year 4	Present Value
Cost per area	34	33	32	31	130

To government

The main costs of badger control to Natural England are for processing licence applications and monitoring of compliance; the main costs to APHA relate to training and mentoring and advice; and local police forces incur costs in relation to maintaining public order and safety. All of these costs are met by taxpayers.

Costs to Natural England are based on the total cost of their licensing team, divided by the expected number of licensed areas per year. Costs are estimated at £165,000 per area over four years in the central case.

Costs to APHA are based on actual costs in 2018. The expectation is that total costs will increase proportionately to the number of areas. Therefore, the cost per area will remain constant as new areas are added. The total costs to APHA are estimated at £143,000 per area over four years in the central case. This includes non-wage cost uplifts of 30% (NI contribution and other employment costs) in line with HMT Green Book Guidance.

Finally, Defra incurs additional costs related to equipment such as communications and positioning equipment. This is expected to cost £12,000 per area over four years in the central case (costs are only incurred in year one when the equipment is purchased).

Table 5: Estimated cost to government per licensed area (£thousands)

	Year 1	Year 2	Year 3	Year 4	Present Value
APHA	38	36	35	34	143
Natural England	43	42	40	39	165
Defra (equipment)	10	0	0	0	12
TOTAL	93	78	76	73	320

The need for policing has been a feature of the policy to date due to the need to maintain public safety. It is likely that extending to eleven new areas will require a similar level of policing at least in their initial year. For the central case, we estimate that policing will cost £217,000 per area over four years. These costs are based on actual and expected costs of policing in 2016 to 2018, and also assume that the Home Office and Defra achieve the shared goal of gradually improving efficiency to move to business as usual policing by 2023 (i.e. no additional resource is provided by the police to support the culls).

Table 6: Estimated cost to government per licensed area (£thousands)

	Year 1	Year 2	Year 3	Year 4	Present Value
Policing Costs	112	54	31	201	217

Overall, we estimate that the total cost to government and farmers per area is £670,000 over 4 years in the central case.

2.3 Total costs and benefits

The total costs are estimated at £670,000 per area in the central case. This compares to a total quantified estimated benefit of £1.75 million per area in the central case (range between £420,000 and £2.85 million).

The Net Present Value of Badger Control over an eleven year appraisal period is therefore estimated at £1.08 million per area in the central case.

3. Sensitivity analysis

3.1 Policing

The need for policing has been a feature of the policy to date due to the need to maintain public safety. It is likely that extending to eleven new areas will require a similar level of policing, at least in their initial year. However, police forces have consolidated their command and control structure for operations this year to reduce costs. Over time, following further successful operations without security incident, we assume policing costs to reduce substantially. This ambition is factored into our central scenario.

However, in the scenario that we continue to incur policing costs over the next four years and potential efficiency gains are not realised (i.e. we continue to incur costs at 2018 estimated levels, a worst case scenario), we estimate that this would reduce the net benefit per licensed area by £207,000 in the central case (from £1.08 to £880,000).

3.2 Cost of a breakdown

The estimated cost of a breakdown in the High Risk Area is central to quantifying the benefits of badger control. Defra continues to update our estimate based on the latest published data on breakdowns in the HRA. This includes inputs such as average length of movement restrictions, average number of reactors, average number of contiguous and trace tests triggered, administrative costs per breakdown to government and more.

3.3 Baseline incidence of TB

Future levels of TB prevalence in the absence of any badger control are uncertain. We have based our assumed level of TB prevalence growth on the average number of OTFW incidents from the most recent prevalence data, which has shown a decrease in OTFW incidents from 2018 to 2019. For this reason the assumed growth in the TB baseline is lower in this analysis than in the previous years (where it was assumed prevalence would increase by 0.88%). This analysis has assumed a baseline decrease in TB cases in the counterfactual of 0.58% based on the average change in prevalence between 2011 and 2018.

Table 7: OTFW incidents in England ^{[footnote 8]}

Year	OTFW Incidents	% Change
2010	2,483
2011	2,628	5.84%
2012	2,867	9.09%
2013	2,806	-2.13%
2014	2,789	-0.61%
2015	2,901	4.02%
2016	2,559	-11.79%
2017	2,618	-2.31%
2018	2,321	-11.34%
Mean		-0.58%

3.4 Perturbation

The RBCT suggested that badger control could lead to a relative increase in TB incidence (OTFW) 8 in cattle herds in the areas outside the licensed area due to the disruption of badger social groups – the so-called ‘perturbation effect’. The impact of perturbation is uncertain, with the central case using evidence of its effect from the RBCT. However, having hard boundaries to control areas, low cattle herd densities and biosecurity measures on farms around the licensed area could mitigate any negative effect.

4. Assumptions and data sources

Table 8: Key assumptions and sources

Costs

Variable	Value	Source
Training and mentoring costs to APHA per area	n/a	APHA advice based on experience to date, and the costs of activities in 2017/18
Natural England licensing and monitoring costs per area	n/a	Natural England accounts, divided by number of areas licensed in a given year
Equipment (e.g. GPS trackers)	n/a	Based on volumes and unit costs observed in licensed areas to date.
Policing	n/a	Based on the average cost of policing per area in 2016 and 2017
NFU costs	n/a	Based on total allocated funding for 2017/18 divided by total number of areas.

Benefits

Variable	Value	Source
Area size	632km2	Based on the average size of the new badger control areas
Per annum change in TB breakdowns (baseline)	-0.58%	Average annualised change in breakdowns base 2011-2017, from the National Statistics.
Breakdowns per km2 in cull areas	0.0661	Based on the average number of OTF-W incidents in the proposed new cull areas for the three years prior to culling starting.
Average cattle slaughter per breakdown	7	Bovine TB surveillance in Great Britain, 2017. (Based on HRA data).
Average days under restriction per breakdown	192	Bovine TB surveillance in Great Britain, 2017. (Based on HRA data).
Cost of breakdown to government	£9,107	Expressed in 2018 prices. Cost to government based on characteristics of an average breakdown in the HRA and the cost of testing/admin concerned. Cost to farmers based on the Defra study (Assessment of the economic impacts of TB and alternative control policies - SE3112)
Cost of a breakdown to farmers	£10,303	Expressed in 2018 prices. Cost to government based on characteristics of an average breakdown in the HRA and the cost of testing/admin concerned. Cost to farmers based on the Defra study (Assessment of the economic impacts of TB and alternative control policies - SE3112)

Miscellaneous

Variable	Value	Source
Discount rate for present values	3.5%	The Green Book: appraisal and evaluation in central government. Last updated March 2018

5. References

1. Measures to address bovine tuberculosis in badgers: impact assessment. November 2011 ↩

2. This Value for Money assessment covers intensive culling in the TB High Risk and Edge Areas. It does not include badger control that may be enabled in the Low Risk Area. ↩

3. The benefits per area presented here are lower than those presented in the 2018 VfM analysis as the model has evolved and become more refined meaning that costs per area are not directly comparable to historic years of analysis. ↩

4. Evidence of the effect of the current culls on the incidence of TB in cattle is only beginning to emerge. In 2017 Brunton et al published data from the first two years of culling in the first two areas, which found culling was associated with a reduction in OTF herd incidence in the two cull areas but with an increase in incidence outside one of the areas, while encouraging these results are still too preliminary to inform this assessment. ↩

5. This assessment considers only confirmed cases of TB and excludes unconfirmed incidents because analysis of data from the RBCT did not identify any significant effect of badger culling on unconfirmed incidents. ↩

6. Assessment of the economic impacts of TB and alternative control policies - SE3112 ↩

7. Measures to address bovine tuberculosis in badgers: impact assessment. November 2011 (see paragraph 6.47) ↩ ↩

8. www.gov.uk/government/statistics/incidence-of-tuberculosis-tb-in-cattle-in-great-britain ↩