AN 11-MONTH investigation into last year's £8bn foot-and-mouth crisis has ended with key questions left unanswered.

Who ordered the contiguous cull and the closure of footpaths, and why it took 25 days to enlist the help of the army, remains unknown.

And Dr Iain Anderson, whose report into the Government's handling of the 2001 outbreak was published on Monday, spoke of his frustration as key witnesses either said they were not present at the time or did not know where the decisions were made.

Those interviewed ranged from Prime Minister Tony Blair and Nick Brown, the then Agriculture Minister, to more than 30 senior civil servants and officials including Richard Wilson, cabinet secretary, and Alastair Campbell, spokesman for the Prime Minister.

Dr Anderson also found that certain written records either had not been made or were missing.

He found it "regrettable" that critical decisions had not been recorded.

In the foreword to his 185-page report, with 3,000 pages of appendices, he wrote: "We seem destined to repeat the mistakes of history."

The Northumberland Report of 1968, and earlier reports, had drawn the same conclusions about the need for preparation, rapid deployment of resources and the central importance of speed - above all, speed in the slaughter of infected animals.

The 2001 epidemic presented challenges which no-one in any country had anticipated "but better preparation to support speedier deployment of critical skills and faster action on the ground to slaughter infected animals and their close contacts would have limited the scale of the damage," said Dr Anderson.

Contingency plans were in place, but maintaining and updating them had not been a priority at a national level.

"If the best preparatory work found in some locations had been replicated nationally, the outcome for the country as a whole would have been better," he said.

At the outset, ministers and vets recognised that they faced a serious situation: "but no-one in command understood in sufficient detail what was happening on the ground during these early days".

When the truth started to emerge in March, relationships among those involved became tense.

"A sense of panic appeared, communications became erratic and orderly processes started to break down," Dr Anderson reported. "Decision making became haphazard and messy, not least in the way in which the culling policy was to be extended.

"The loss of public confidence and the media's need for a story started to drive the agenda."

The breakdown of trust in Government was one of the main findings of the inquiry.

Dr Anderson said success in the fight against any future animal disease would depend on the co-operation of farmers and many others in the countryside.

"It will also depend on farming and tourist interests recognising that they have a joint stake in the success of their rural communities," he said. "Similarly, central Government must regain the confidence of, and work more in partnership with, local government."

Dr Anderson recognised that "farmers in particular were subjected to stress and sometimes to insensitive behaviour on the part of officials".

He was also satisfied that officials he had met in Whitehall and the regions were "trying to cope in sometimes desperate, almost impossible, circumstances".

Confidence could only be rebuilt by all parties acting, but Defra should take the lead. As a first step it should admit it had made mistakes but would learn from them.

Dr Anderson had detected in MAFF, and now Defra, a culture of decision making by committee and a fear of personal risk taking. That did not encourage creativity or the use of initiative.

"It seems to me a reappraisal of prevailing attitudes and behaviours within the department would be beneficial," he said