On 1 April 2011, Animal Health and the Veterinary Laboratories Agency (VLA) merged to form a new executive agency, to be known as the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency (AHVLA). The creation of the new body brings together considerable delivery capability and scientifi c expertise into a single organisation.

The main reason for the merger is to increase resilience of the agency’s operations, including an emergency response capability for dealing with animal disease outbreaks, and internationally recognised scientifi c expertise in animal health, during a time of reducing public expenditure. The merger also provides a new, wider opportunity to change the way things are done, to provide more cost effective services and to create more fl exible and robust working methods.

In addition to merging the two existing agencies, approximately fi fty veterinary and scientifi c advisors previously working for the Defra Food and Farming Group (FFG) transferred into AHVLA. This embeds within the agency full responsibility for advising Defra on the veterinary and scientifi c evidence base for policy development. The transfer will enable more effective use of resources and help meet the increasing need for evidence and specialist advice in support of the Government’s objectives. These include the need to address the environmental sustainability of animal food production and climate change mitigation. The agency will continue to serve customers in the UK veterinary profession and farming communities, as well as other international customers.

Animal Health and VLA working together is not new. With other partner organisations they have achieved notable steps forward in the understanding and control of animal disease - eradicating brucellosis, controlling outbreaks of foot and mouth disease and avian infl uenza, fi nding and contributing to the control of BSE.

The new agency faces complex challenges, particularly in the context of changing disease risks, tight restrictions on public expenditure and economic pressures on the industries it supports and regulates. By working together even more closely, as a single agency, it will be better placed to achieve its aims and provide services to its customers.

AHVLA will be a net running cost agency (NRCA). This means that it will not receive an annual budget for the work it does. Instead, all funding will be directly linked to the activities AHVLA carries out on behalf of policy customers - predominantly Defra, the Welsh Assembly Government and the Scottish Government.