Policy framing and learning the lessons from the UKs Foot and Mouth Disease crisis

The 2001 foot and mouth disease (FMD) epidemic cost over £8 billion and wreaked havoc upon the British countryside. The paper examines the institutional response to the crisis and the subsequent inquiries. Drawing on the ‘garbage-can model’ of organisational choice and ideas of ‘policy framing’, it argues that the institutional response to FMD was tightly focused on agricultural interests. Subsequently, a compartmentalised approach to lesson learning has been partial in its coverage. The result is that important lessons, of a more holistic and integrated nature, have been overlooked despite the replacement of the Ministry of Agriculture with a new Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.