Livestock Information Transformation Programme

Government Transformation and Service Delivery

Record date: 31 March 2026

Whole-life cost: £525.5m
Published schedule: Not disclosed – Low: 31/03/2029, Mid: 31/03/2029, High: 31/03/2030
NISTA delivery confidence: RED
Senior responsible owner: Jez Sharpe

What the project is for

The Livestock Information Transformation Programme (LITP) will replace multiple existing outdated tracing systems with a single, modern digital multi-species service. This service is essential to harness data to help protect English and UK food security, international trade, consumer confidence and prevent disruption to the farming industry. The programme will also deliver wider transformational effect across the livestock industry, through the exploitation of accurate data, subsequently promoting growth, improving efficiency and driving higher standards across the sector. These data opportunities will support transformation in the agriculture sector and will deliver government and industry-wide benefits. Upon completion of the programme's work, there will be a new multi-species system for tracing livestock, replacing existing legacy systems, using a cloud-based approach. Registration will be clearer and less complicated, the accessibility of services will be refined and will subsequently reduce errors and accelerate reporting, providing a better experience for keepers and the livestock industry. Users will be able to manage animal movements more coherently, and animal health and welfare will be improved through a UK View of livestock information.

Departmental delivery commentary

Compared to financial year 24/25, the NISTA/SRO Delivery Confidence Assessment rating at 25/26 decreased to Red. Path to green plan approved by Ministers on 12 May 26.

Schedule

Compared to financial year 24/25-Q4, the projects end date at 23/26 remained the same. This date is however subject to change due to replanning and path to green plan being refined.

Cost

Compared to financial year 24/25 - Q4, the projects departmentally agreed Whole Life Cost at 25/26-Q4 remained at £546,650

Benefits

Compared to the 2024/25 yearly return the projected departmentally agreed and quantified benefits have decreased from £107.8m to £56m. This is primarily due to refinement of economic modelling for programme business case 2. Since the OBC there has been significant progress in refining the approach to appraising the benefits of the preferred option. These changes, which were made to ensure the modelling is suitably robust, have caused benefits outputs to reduce since previous report. Changes include: Refinement of disease management modelling for ASF and FMD, complete redevelopment of BEID and efficiencies modelling, and removal of some existing monetised benefits where evidence was not sufficiently robust. The quantified benefits associated with LITP are predominantly comprised of disease management, industry efficiency, and government efficiency benefits over a 10 year appraisal period. Disease management benefits quantify the avoided economic losses associated with improved government disease response, driven by faster and more accurate traceability data. Quantified benefits are considered to be a significant underestimate of the true value of the programme: disease management benefits are only quantified for two diseases; other benefits are not quantified due to data limitations, for example the avoided cost of current system failure; and there are significant enabled benefits unlocked for other programmes which are not reflected in this analysis.