Self regulation – taking cues from football

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By Tim Weston, Regional Development Officer for the National Gamekeepers’ Organisation

Those of you who follow football will have seen that the Government has committed to installing an independent regulator who will be looking over the Premier League. Those of you who don’t follow football, please bear with me because there is some relevance to shooting sports.

The Government is planning to create legislation to implement the findings of Tracey Crouch’s Fan-Led Review of Football Governance. This calls for major changes in the way English football is run, with the Government imposing an independent regulator (IREF) and mandating major changes to the way clubs are managed. It seems that, for too long, football has been allowed to make up its own rules and effectively to govern itself. Is that bad?

Well, no – I don’t think so! Self-regulation is a really important part of showing and doing the right thing; something that football obviously has fallen foul of according to the Crouch report.

Shooting sports are at a similar crossroads regarding regulation and self-regulation. Our sector is a bit different because there are a number of laws and regulations that do affect what we do and how we do it. Regulations apply to gamekeepers and shoot managers on large, small, DIY and farm shoots as well as those of us who go out pigeon shooting, for example.

Most of us will be in possession of a shotgun or firearms certificate (or both), which are heavily regulated. Those involved in running shoots of all sizes have many regulations that they must know and to which they must adhere, eg. the Countryside & Wildlife Act, the Game Act, the Spring Traps Order, the Animal Humane Trapping Standards, Food Hygiene Regulations, to name but a few.

There are also many codes that a gamekeeper or shoot manager should stick to. The first and foremost of these is the Code of Good Shooting Practice as well as many others such as the Defra Code of Snaring, the Code of Game Rearing and others. Those of you who go out to protect farmers’ crops need to know about – and understand – the General Licence system. As gamekeepers you must make sure you are on the Poultry Register, and must realise that there are obligations upon you as responsible people.

But given the fact that we already have all these codes and laws, do we need to start to self-regulate?

Let’s take another look at football: this had over 100 years of self-regulation and did some very good things. But as the game became more of a business, football seems to have lost its way a little.

Is this starting to sound familiar? Shooting sports have a massive net gain for wildlife, wild places, habitat and biodiversity as well as human well-being and economic benefits to rural places and lives. However, it is the very few people who do not follow the law or guidelines that bring us all into disrepute. That said, it is the same for any sector. For example, there are bad police officers, bad gamekeepers and bad shop keepers, so it is up to us to show that we are doing things in the right way. And that’s even more important given the pressure that groups like Wild Justice, RSPB and others are putting on us via clever press statements and releases.

If you are unsure of what you should be doing or what the shoot you are shooting on should be doing, your first place to look is the Code of Good Shooting Practice. This code has been put together by the relevant bodies and consolidates all the legalities and codes into one place.

But if you want to be able to prove to others that your shoot or the shoot you are shooting on is doing what the code says and going a bit further, there are now two assurance schemes available.

The first is the British Game Assurance (BGA). The BGA is now entering its fifth season and uses an independent auditor to look at your shoot from the top down to make sure it is doing everything it should be and more. It looks at all of your processes and practices and gives the buyer of the shooting and of the game meat an assurance that you have met the highest standards possible throughout. You could think of it as a Red Tractor scheme for shoots.

The second assurance option is the new kid on the block, Trusted Game. Trusted Game is more of a health and welfare audit conducted by your own specialist gamebird vet. (If you don’t have one you should, whatever size your shoot – large or small.) The idea behind Trusted Game is to show that your rearing, releasing and care of your gamebirds is up to the strictest standards. You could equate it to to the RSPCA Assured farming standards that McDonald’s, the Co-Op and others use in their restaurants and shops.

Both the Red Tractor and the RSPCA schemes are recognisable by consumers and I hope that in the not-too-distant future the BGA and Trusted Game will be similarly familiar brands to those of us who buy days shooting and game meat.

Why is it important that shoots start to look at schemes like Trusted Game or the BGA? Well, if we look back at football and the Premier League, they have had years of self-governance and not got it right so they are having regulation forced upon them, both of which come with a cost. Self-regulation will cost money (for example, Trusted Game is just £100 or £200 per year for a shoot, and the BGA is somewhat more), but the alternative could be much more costly in terms of both financial outlay or real legislative restrictions on what we can do. Examples of such imposed restrictions could include releasing gamebirds under licence only; trapping and conservation work could well go the same way, which will only have negative effects for wildlife in the long run.

Each of us must start to look to ourselves and join an assurance scheme that fits our shoot. Let’s all make a difference and do the right thing by getting on the road to self-regulation before it’s too late.

More information on Trusted Game can be found at www.trustedgame. co.uk, and on British Game Assurance at www.britishgameassurance.co.uk

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Notes to Editors:

The National Gamekeepers’ Organisation: The National Gamekeepers’ Organisation (NGO) represents the gamekeepers of England and Wales. The NGO defends and promotes gamekeeping and gamekeepers and works to ensure high standards throughout the profession. The National Gamekeepers’ Organisation was founded in 1997 by a group of gamekeepers who felt that keepering was threatened by public misunderstanding and poor representation. Today, there are 13,000 members of the National Gamekeepers’ Organisation.  www.nationalgamekeepers.org.uk