The public service agreement (PSA) target was based on a 2004 model that assumed our existing voluntary ram genotyping scheme (RGS), part of the national scrapie plan, would be replaced with a compulsory scheme which was a pending EU-wide requirement. That requirement was dropped by the EU Commission at the end of 2006. A compulsory scheme has therefore not been implemented in Great Britain and we are consulting on closure of the current voluntary scheme.
The 2004 model has recently been re-run with regard to the change in the EU position and assuming that the voluntary RGS closes. It suggests that this PSA target of a 40 per cent. reduction in the prevalence of scrapie infections should nevertheless be reached in 2011.