Catalogue description Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food: BSE Inquiry: Chief Veterinary Officers Papers

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Details of MAF 707
Reference: MAF 707
Title: Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food: BSE Inquiry: Chief Veterinary Officers Papers
Description:

This series contains the records and papers which chart the activities of the Chief Veterinary Officer and his team throughout the course of the BSE emergency.

Date: 1987-1996
Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Former reference in its original department: Unregistered folders
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: English
Creator:

Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Animal Health and Veterinary Group, 1990-1996

Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Chief Veterinary Officer's Group, 1996-2000

Physical description: 116 file(s)
Access conditions: Open
Immediate source of acquisition:

In 2018 Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Accumulation dates: 1990 to 1996
Selection and destruction information: Records selected under the Records Collection Policy (3.1.2 structures and decision-making processes in government, and 3.1.4 states interaction with the physical environment).
Accruals: No further accruals are anticipated
Administrative / biographical background:

The BSE Inquiry was a massive undertaking. Lord Phillips and his team spent nearly three years examining what happened day by day during the ten years that led up to the announcement of 20 March 1996 that BSE had probably generated a new and fatal human disease. More than 1,200 people submitted written evidence to the Inquiry; there were 138 days of public oral evidence from 333 witnesses and the team looked at 3,000 files of contemporary official documents. Up until 2001 the full estimated cost of the Inquiry to the public purse was about £29 million. The final Inquiry report was expected to consist of a main volume of perhaps 100-200 pages (containing the key findings, criticisms and recommendations and 15 supporting volumes each of at least 100 pages, amounting to 4,000 pages in all)

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