As Alex Salmond and Alisdair Darling debate whether Scots would be better or worse off if Scotland becomes independent and whether they can keep sterling I find myself wondering what other institutions an independent Scotland would have to forsake. The other director of Vetpol hails from Scotland and is far from convinced of the benefits for Scots of independence; however, she lives in England and would probably struggle to go back to the rain and the midgies...so it's not really for her to say just as it's not for me to say. Although I do wonder being married to a perhaps-soon-to-be-expat-Scot whether ex-pat Scots living in England will wonder whether they will have to renounce their UK citizenship or their Scottish citizenship. You can't have it both ways after all.

I suspect most English people would think that Scots have the right to vote for their independence, and if they want it, take all the consequences of going it alone. If they didn't have the chance to vote then we're not really a democracy...just as we wouldn't really be a democracy if we didn't have the right in the rest of the UK not presently considering regional independence to be given a choice on whether to stay in or get out of a European Community that is nothing like what Ted Heath took us in to. Very few of us had the chance to vote on being in the EC, even if some of our parents did, and the EC was just a trading block, not a fiscal union run by Brussels bureaucrats.

Alex Salmond seems convinced that he can retain sterling although I doubt this; an independent Scotland might be able to trade in sterling, just as UK businesses can trade in Euros or Dollars if we want to, but a currency is more than just buying and selling things and if Scotland goes independent I can't see English voters and taxpayers tolerating the use of sterling to underwrite an independent Scottish economy. But you have to wonder what other institutions they might have to recreate; there must be thousands of small UK institutions effectively helping to run Scotland.

One of the smaller institutions is the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, which regulates veterinary surgeons across the UK. An independent Scotland would have to have some kind of body regulating vets if they want to export agricultural products, or stay in Europe. However, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons is something of an anachronism; it isn't answerable to the government, but to the Privy Council, i.e. effectively to the Queen who is presently being asked to consider changing the College's Royal Charter. If the Scottish nationalists get their way I somehow cannot see them being happy with the security of their agriculture and petcare industries and a variety of other industries that depend on vets being effectively under the control of Queen Elizabeth the first of Scotland. Some of what the RCVS does and has done over the years is also, to put it mildly, a bit odd.

Recently the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons did some market research on the issue of out-of-hours-emergency cover and domiciliary visits as there is at present widespread frustration amongst vets over the present status quo, including frustration over being made to go and see clients in an emergency even if those clients are not actually registered with their practices. In the last few weeks the College decided that despite widespread frustration they weren't going to change the Code of Conduct, but they were instead going to alter the supporting guidance made available on the web to vets and to members of the public seeking to complain. They published this about a week ago and it's on the RCVS website here. As part of the changes they decided to make animal owners aware of their own obligations under the law, which is reasonable, but oddly under "Seeking veterinary attention 3.20" they say for the benefit of animal owners "There is no legal requirement for owners to register their animals with a veterinary practice."

I cannot see why anybody with even an ounce of commercial acumen would decide to highlight this. It's true to say that there may be no legal requirement for animal owners to register their animals with a veterinary practice, depending upon how you view the Animal Welfare Act, or perhaps even according to the specific circumstances of how a group of animals is kept, but it's also true that there is nothing in the RCVS Charter and nothing in the Veterinary Surgeons Act obliging the RCVS to impose an obligation upon its members to provide any kind of service to owners who are not registered with them: Effectively it is something that the College is doing voluntarily. So commercially, the fact that the RCVS is highlighting the fact that in its view members of the public don't have to register and continuing to impose an obligation on individual vets to service the needs of unregistered client is, to use a phrase often used by Boris Johnson, bonkers.

Under the British voting system we have a first-past-the-post-system; the party that gets the most votes wins. The College produced a presentation on its recent market research which is attached to this blog. On page 16 of this presentation they say that the College asked one question of respondents specifically concerning the provision of emergency care to unregistered clients which although this research was not well designed to look at the issue was as close as they got to an answer on one of the things that causes widespread frustration amongst vets. They asked vets to agree or disagree with:

"When on call I would be satisfied to to be obliged to take steps to to provide emergency first aid and pain relief only to animals registered with the practice."

And the answer was that 52.9% said that they agree or strongly agree with this statement and 31.3% said they disagree or strongly disagree. So the 'obligation to provide emergency care only to registered clients' camp was in a clear majority; under our less than perfect but relatively successful UK first-past-the-post democratic system that's what would actually happen and it's very odd that the College decided in effect to maintain the status quo despite a clear indication from its market research that the majority of its members probably want something else. After all, removing the obligation to service unregistered clients wouldn't stop vets seeing the animals of unregistered clients if they want to, it just means that clients can't complain if they haven't bothered to plan for the care of their animals: It's not normal for any private healthcare business to be obliged to provide care for unregistered clients.

So with Scotland about a month away from voting on its independence and, if the nationalists are successful, perhaps about to have to set up its own veterinary regulation system you find yourself wondering whether vets in Scotland will end up with different professional obligations to those in England. Maybe some of us in England might end up thinking, "...er, what's happening here is bonkers....can we be regulated by you guys?"