Innovation Award for Live Fish Movements Database

The Live Fish Movements Database project was judged to be runner-up in the 'best joined-up service' category of the Government Computing Innovation Awards 2001.

These awards are designed to acknowledge leading innovations in the electronic delivery of public services. Other awards, which were announced at the close of the GC2001 conference at the Business Design Centre, London in May, were presented for best service to citizens, best service to business, and information-age innovator of the year. 

The photograph shows Eric Hudson, project leader an chairman of the Live Fish Movements management board, receiving the trophy from Karen Swinden a Director of Kable, the administrators of the awards, which are sponsored by Syntegra.

The project was funded by the Treasury, through the ISB (Invest to Save Budget) scheme. The objective was to design, test and implement, including user training, a single interactive shared Live Fish Movements electronic database. The Environment Agency (EA), Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food (MAFF), National Assembly of Wales Agricultural Department (NAWAD), and CEFAS, (Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science) as the bodies charged with implementing the diverse legislation on live fish transfers in England and Wales to prevent and control the spread of serious fish diseases, would all have access to the new database.

The Live Fish Movements Database has been successfully developed and implemented. It is based on an electronic fish farm database, containing registration details of fish farms in England and Wales, together with information on imports and transfers of live fish to and from these farms, previously developed and operated by CEFAS. It contains all relevant information on fish farm registration, fish imports (from the EU and third countries), fish movements (internal farm transfers and introductions to inland waters), and the keeping of non-native fish in England and Wales. This information was previously held separately, both electronically and as paper records, at various locations, by the above four organisations.

Successful execution of this project has been facilitated by a management board, on which all four partners (EA, MAFF, NAWAD and CEFAS) were represented. This has helped to forge closer and more meaningful links between the partners and enabled a joined-up government approach to implementing and enforcing the controls for preventing the introduction and spread of serious fish diseases and non-native species in England and Wales. The sharing of information on all movements of fish provides an opportunity for more effective and consistent decision making. It will assist in preventing and detecting offences of fish thefts and illegal imports and bring us closer to our joint shared objectives of protecting fish, protecting the environment, preventing fish disease, and reducing fish-related crime.