The number of herds that are not officially TB Free (non-OTF) due to a TB incident has been significantly revised downwards for 2012 and 2013. Figures for January were not published after it emerged that a computer fault at the Animal health agency AHVLA had led to herds whose restrictions had been lifted remaining on the list of statistics for herds that had not gained official Tb-free status.

This led to a cumulative 'overstatement' of the number of herds under bTB control measures due to a bTB incident. Defra admitted that, "The differences between the corrected and old figures are greater for the more recent months, as the effect of the errors was cumulative over the affected period."

Upon releasing the updated figures this week, Defra said it had made corrections to approximately 2,500 herd records. The error meant that, by September 2013, Defra figures suggested the number of non-OTF herds in the UK was 28 percent higher than was actually the case (a difference of 1649 herds under restrictions).

New herd incidents were also revised downwards in Defra's updated figures; the number of recorded new herd incidents dropped by 47 herds to 5,154 in 2012 and by 69 to 3,487 in 2013, compared to earlier published figures.

The revised figures were released earlier in the week. They will no doubt come as an embarrassment to Defra, as the department is already under fire over its management of the deeply divisive badger cull, and has also faced criticism over handling of recent flooding in the South.  

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Although a report on 2013's pilot badger culls was expected from Defra's independent panel of advisors at the beginning of the year, this has been delayed, which has caused concern amongst pro-culling groups.

Old figures, used by Defra ministers to make the case for badger culling, suggested an increase in non-OTF herds between September 2012 and 2013. The revised figures suggest that, although there is a spike in the middle of the year, the number of non-OTF herds fell over the year. The number of herds under restrictions did increase between 2011 and 2012.  

The most remarkable decline is in Wales, where the government abandoned plans to cull badgers in favour of a vaccination programme in 2012. There, having risen between 2011 and 2012, figures drop off to pre-2011 levels by September 2013, the last date for which they are available.   

See full report here