IT problems prevent farmers registering cattle movements

Computer problems have been preventing British livestock farmers from registering cattle movements online, Defra has said.

Farmers have been reporting issues over the past few days attempting to log on to the British Cattle Movement Service (BCMS), the database of all bovine animals in Great Britain, which is operated by the Rural Payments Agency (RPA).

Due to the IT problems, some farmers said they were still waiting to receive passports for calves born at the beginning of May.

See also: Farmer criticises RPA’s approach on cattle passports

Others said they had had to resort to the “old way” of phoning Defra to register cattle movements.

Defra said technical difficulties were responsible for the problems.

A Defra spokesman said: “An IT equipment failure during routine maintenance has affected some Defra systems. We are working at pace to get the systems back online.”

The spokesman confirmed on Tuesday (14 May) that the BCMS system was back up and running again.