A FINANCIAL watchdog today revealed the average cost of cleaning Worcestershire farms hit by foot-and-mouth disease was a staggering £70,000.

The figure is almost double the national average of £36,000 - with some contractors charging £27.50 per hour, according to the National Audit Office.

In other parts of the country, the work was done for just £10 per hour. The total bill in Worcestershire reached around £34m - the second highest figure in the country, behind Cumbria.

The NAO said some of the variations in price were down to differences in the size and type of farm.

But Government officials are concerned there was wide-spread over-charging by cleaning firms.

They are now examining invoices sent in by 102 of the 107 biggest contractors who carried out cleaning work nationwide to see if they were paid too much.

The NAO itself concludes that, at times, financial controls fell below a "minimum standard".

The report also includes a raft of criticisms of the way the Government handled last year's outbreak.

It revealed an internal document - the Drummond report - had warned Ministers a serious outbreak would leave vets "overwhelmed" as far back as 1999.

Other priorities

But some of the report's recommendations were not acted upon as MAFF focused on "other priorities", such as BSE.

This left the Government with a lack of "thorough contingency planning" for the crisis, which cost the public sector more than £3bn and the private sector more than £5bn.

Other criticisms included a failure to consider more than one likely scenario in the event of an outbreak. This was that only 10 premises would be infected.

Farming Ministers are also accused of not co-operating "effectively" with other Government departments.

And the Government also failed to recognise the impact the outbreak would have on non-farming businesses, such as the tourist industry.

"Urgent action is needed to produce contingency plans which would be more sensitive to outbreaks of different scales and thus be better suited to dealing with a future crisis on this scale," said Sir John Bourn, head of the NAO.

Edward Leigh, chairman of the powerful Commons Public Accounts Committee, said MAFF was "completely unprepared for the epidemic which cost the rural economy and tourist industry so dear and the taxpayer over £3 bn."

"Their contingency plans showed a complete failure of imagination. In line with EU guidance, they did not envisage any possibility worse than that 10 farming premises could be infected at any one time."