The real story about the RSPCA?

To make any sense of all this, you first need to get it clear that England and Wales is covered by RSPCA branches, which are independently registered as individual charities but share a single governing document (the branch rules). RSPCA branches (in this sense) are organisations which cover a particular territory (in our case the South of Cambridgeshire and a few extra bits). 

Branches may divide up (if the area is too big to manage) or amalgamate (if the areas are too small to make sense) but they can't take their "pot" of funds and leave the RSPCA and they don't close, although they may become short of volunteers or cash and have to reduce the amount of welfare work they do or fail to recruit enough volunteer trustees and be temporarily held in the trusteeship of the national RSPCA.

Branches may operate facilities such as an animal centre or clinic, and the national RSPCA also runs animal centres and hospitals—for example Putney animal hospital, East Winch Wildlife centre and Block Fen animal centre are all run by the national RSPCA, while our clinic in Cambridge is run by the branch.

Occasionally the individual centres are referred to as "branches" (as you might refer to a branch of WH Smiths), but the distinction is important to get straight because of all the bad temper surrounding claims that donations given to the RSPCA don't go towards running animal homes. 

Centres like Block Fen which are directly run by the national RSPCA are fully funded by them. The independent branches get an annual grant (currently £12,000-£18,000) but are expected to fundraise to raise any money needed over and above this to keep their own local services going.

This inevitably means that centres owned and run by branches have a somewhat more precarious existence than the national centres because they have a smaller cushion of reserves for hard times and because they're more dependent on having a team of voluntary workers which manages to recruit new members when old ones leave or become too old to do as much as they were.

Unfortunately, the branches are also the first casualties of political campaigns to reduce support for the RSPCA in order to make enforcement of the Hunting Act impossible and of the general public perception that the RSPCA doesn't need support because it has huge resources. 

Animal Welfare Statistics for May and June

In May we rehomed 1 dog, 2 cats and 2 miscellaneous "small furries". We provided 215 low-cost treatments for dogs, 72 for cats, 9 for rabbits and 8 for miscellaneous.

In June, we rehomed 1 dog, 9 cats and 18 of the small furries. We provided 195 low cost treatments for dogs, 73 for cats, 5 for rabbits and 6 for miscellaneous.

On average the number of treatments is roughly twice the number of individual animals as most will visit the clinic more than once in any given year.

What can you do to help?

If you are not a member of the RSPCA, do consider joining.

RSPCA members are eligible to vote to elect the committees who run local branches and in the election of the national RSPCA's governing council. They can attend local and national Annual General Meetings and speak and propose resolutions. 

Also consider whether you would have time to join the committee of your local branch. Most branches have a need for extra people and would welcome your help. New committee members can be elected at the branch AGM (they need to have been RSPCA members for at least 3 months at the time the AGM is held) or they can be co-opted by the existing elected committee members during the year. Co-option is often used as a way to give potential new committee members some experience before they decide whether to take the step of standing for election.

Virtually everyone has useful skills that they could bring to the task of running a branch, but please don't go in on the basis that all the existing people are useless idiots and you are going to put them right and save the animals from them. 

First, it probably isn't true and you will be wasting everyone's time and putting people's backs up. 

Secondly, even if there are many things about the branch which are less efficient than they could be, the point isn't to swap your blind spots for those of the current people—the aim should be to improve without creating a state of constant upheaval where nothing ever gets finished.

Most branches need a combination of people with specific "technical" skills, such as animal behaviour, legal, management,  or finance skills and people willing to get involved with organising fundraising events and practical animal care. You may not think you have any special skills to offer, but one of the most urgent needs is for people willing to organise quite small scale events (such as one sponsored dog walk each year) to build up a calendar of regular fundraising.

There's nearly always a need for volunteers able to foster dogs, particularly the larger breeds. Kennel environments are not good for dogs on a long term basis and many dogs behave quite differently in the frightening, noisy atmosphere than in quiet domestic surroundings. There's an ongoing initiative to get more of the "case dogs" (dogs who are the subject of a current prosecution) into foster homes for the period before their case comes to court so that these dogs no longer have to stay in kennels for protracted periods before they can be offered for rehoming.

One of the key qualities that is required by fosterers is the ability to hand the animal back. This is particularly key for case animals where there is the possibility that we lose the case and the animal has to be returned to the owner.

Where do the RSPCA statistics come from?

The RSPCA's welfare statistics are produced as the result of over 200 people (many of them unpaid volunteers like me) each completing a spreadsheet recording animal welfare activity over the past month in an Excel workbook. At the year end, the workbook automatically summarises 12 monthly sheets to generate figures, which are sent in to Horsham and used to generate the final statistics which are published in the Annual Report and Accounts of the Society.

The independent Branches, nationally-run centres (like Block Fen and the large animal hospitals), and the Inspectors all generate spreadsheets to feed in to the final report.

Our own branch return for 2012 is shown below to give you an idea of how one is made up.

Points to note:

• We have an animal clinic, so we provide an unusually large number of welfare treatments for owned animals in comparison with branches who can only offer vouchers to use at private vets.
  
  
• We don't have our own animal home, so any inspectorate "case" animals (animals in care as the result of a prosecution) only come into our care once the case is completed or they have been signed over by their owner.
  
  
• Animals with no chance of survival, for example a cat with a broken back, would normally be put to sleep by a vet during the initial emergency treatment period which is funded by the national RSPCA and would be recorded in the statistics kept by them.
  
  
• Dogs are most likely to come in direct from an owner because of a welfare concern, while cats are relatively more likely to come in as sick/injured strays. This is because stray dogs are legally the responsibility of the Local Authority. Dogs may sometimes be taken in as injured strays if they need immediate help and the Local Authority animal warden can't be contacted.
  
  
• Animals are sometimes in care because their mother was heavily pregnant when she was brought in.
  
  
• The "non RSPCA-Generated" category represents animals taken in because they were unwanted but in the absence of any concern that they would be made to suffer if not taken in. It is RSPCA policy to give priority to "RSPCA-Generated" animals so that they can be kept as long as is necessary to find them a home provided this will not cause them suffering.
  
  Some branches with animal homes who take in stray dogs from their local authority, so they can be rehomed instead of euthanased, will have a lot more non RSPCA-Generated than we do.
  
  
• Feral cats will be trapped, neutered and released if possible but would be put to sleep if the only alternative was to keep them permanently caged and in distress.
  
  
• Reasons for euthanasia are aggregated in the final published totals in the Annual Report so that the distinction is only between homeable and unhomeable animals (for wild animals between animals fit to be released if a site was available and animals who can't be released). Arguably feral cats should be reported like wild animals (recording any healthy cats who were put to sleep because no release sites could be found).
  
  
• To collect meaningful results from so many individuals the form has to be straightforward enough to be completed. Over-complicating it would probably mean some volunteers submitted late or not at all (because it is difficult to convince people that a return with some errors is preferable to no return at all). This means it probably isn't going to be possible to collect some data which would potentially be very useful—such as comparative euthanasia rates for large dogs vs small ones, animals of different ages or cats who are timid but not feral.
  
  This is probably already an issue for some of the reasons for euthanasia (e.g. "behaviour" vs "aggression" is probably trying to capture the distinction between the dog who might kill someone and the cat who sprays indoors) but I would be surprised if no-one was ever confused by this and aggregating the data probably produces a more accurate result.

		Period covered:				Year		2012			Branch:							Cambridge & District
		(1) Animals in branch care									(4) Microchipping
		Dog	Cat	Rabbit	Misc	Total					Dog	Cat	Rabbit	Misc	Total
	Balance at start of year	4	24	3	6	37				Rehomed animals	11	94	0	4	109
										Welfare/Vouchers redeemed	45	13	0	0	58
	IN	Reason for entry								Welfare micro-chipping events	71	46	0	0	117
	RSPCA Generated	Dog	Cat	Rabbit	Misc	Total				Total	127	153	0	4	284
	Inspectorate case animals	4	10	0	0	14
	Welfare concern	12	33	4	19	68				Welfare/Vouchers issued	0	0	0	0	0
	Unowned sick and injured via NCC	2	51	4	7	64
	Pet Retreat and home for life	0	0	0	0	0
	Transfers from RSPCA centres	0	0	0	0	0
	Returns	2	2	0	0	4					(5) Neutering
	Born in branch care	0	11	0	6	17					Dog	Cat	Rabbit	Misc	Total
	Total in - RSPCA Generated in	20	107	8	32	167				Rehomed animals	9	76	4	13	102
										Welfare/Vouchers redeemed	73	11	7	3	94
	Non-RSPCA Generated	1	0	0	0	1				Welfare neutering events	31	2	0	0	33
										Total	113	89	11	16	229
	OUT	Reason for leaving
		Dog	Cat	Rabbit	Misc	Total				Welfare/Vouchers issued	0	0	0	0	0
	Rehomed	12	95	9	36	152
	Died	0	2	2	2	6
	Transferred out	6	16	0	0	22
	Other	0	1	0	0	1					(6) Welfare assistance
	PTS	2	7	0	0	9					Dog	Cat	Rabbit	Misc	Total
	Total out	20	121	11	38	190				Branch clinic	2592	1058	76	49	3775
										Welfare/Vouchers redeemed	14	7	3	0	24
		Animals in care at end of month								Welfare events	0	0	0	0	0
		Dog	Cat	Rabbit	Misc	Total				Total	2606	1065	79	49	3799
	Balance at end of year	5	10	0	0	15
										Welfare/Vouchers issued	0	0	0	0	0
		(2) Homevisiting											(7) Feral Cats
		Dog	Cat	Rabbit	Misc	Total				No. of Feral cats neutered & released					0
	Pre-home visits	47	93	4	2	146
	Post-home visits	8	23	0	0	31
											(8) Length of Stay of animals currently in care
											Dog	Cat	Rabbit	Misc	Total
		(3) Animals in Branch care and								0-3 months	2	8	0	0	10
		subsequently PTS								4-6 months	2	2	0	0	4
	Reason	Dog	Cat	Rabbit	Misc	Total				Over 6 months	1	0	0	0	1
	Vet Advice	2	7	0	0	9				Total	5	10	0	0	15
	Animal's best interest	0	0	0	0	0
	Aggression	0	0	0	0	0
	Behavioural	0	0	0	0	0
	Unwanted/unhomed	0	0	0	0	0					(9) Wildlife Information
	Orphaned	0	0	0	0	0
	Feral	0	0	0	0	0				Accepted	0		Died		0
	Legal	0	0	0	0	0
	Total	2	7	0	0	9				Transferred	0		PTS		0
	At owners insistence	0	0	0	0	0				Released	0