DEFRA had responsibilities and knew what they were.
But with departmental inexperience and operating from a position of ignorance DEFRA decided to hide a string of impractical, contradictory and misinformed regulations within an unworkable rating system - Which prevented DEFRA's bureaucrats from being able to see their own faults or foresee any obvious consequences.
DEFRA: Regulations & Responsibilities.
If businesses were left to their own devices, the management would have a fiduciary duty to serve the interests of shareholders - and if they were allowed to would endanger their employees, or pollute and destroy the environment to increase their profitability - So there is a constant push and pull between good government implementing restrictive regulations for societal good and a business developing the ability to corrupt the regulators to increase profits or create an unfair advantage to compete on an international stage.
The problem is that catteries and kennels have never needed to lobby anyone because our sector developed the FAB framework. And up until 2019 our government regulations were less intrusive or damaging and inspections had been conducted annually without raising any significant problems. So we’ve never needed to engage in corporate games or get involved in government corruption because when DEFRA took responsibility for our sector there were no problems to fix and no need for any new regulations.
The primary goal of any business regulation is to protect all parties, create conditions for growth and allow enterprise to flourish. But DEFRA failed to consider any of these responsibilities, and they don’t even have the excuse that we need to adopt their regulations to protect our businesses from fines or lawsuits.
DEFRA had no justification for rewriting our regulations.
DEFRA launched it’s ludicrous system of inspection and regulation so that not only were business owners victimised for no benefit, it has not protected anyone in this sector, has not benefitted society and has rendered every operation less profitable - and these structural upheavals accross the country has created a need for an unregulated and uninsured cottage industry to plug the gaps - A new sector that DEFRA have absolutely no control over and local authorities have no money to inspect or investigate because there is no political will and no associated premises.