How information from surveys is used to feed into RSPCA policy

The work which is usually referred to as the "Southampton Cat Survey" is just one example of how data which has been collected may be used to shape future animal welfare activities. I happen to know a fair bit about it because I was involved in some of the cat neutering projects which were set up in response to the information which had been collected.Briefly, the survey found:The idea that almost all cats are not neutered and that there is a "cat population crisis" is certainly false.In some areas virtually all pet cats are neutered.There isn't a direct relationship between the size of the adult cat population in an area and the percentage of cats who have been neutered.  In fact in affluent/well-educated areas where cats are popular as pets there may be a high cat population which produces very few kittens. The population level is kept up by people choosing to adopt or purchase from elsewhere.What matters from a welfare point of view is the production of kittens for which homes are not available. It is possible to work out (from figures on cat lifespan and the usual litter size) what percentage of cats need to be neutered to produce a population which is in balance.Help with the cost of neutering (and with getting to the vet etc.) won't have any useful effect if it goes to owners who would have neutered anyway - so to be most effective it should be targeted towards areas where the percentage of unneutered cats is higher than the "balance" number.The first attempts to make use of these results involved grants from the National RSPCA to branches to cover the cost of large-scale neutering projects. In order to take part, branches had to commit to surveying the target area before and after the project in an attempt to find how well they had succeeded in moving the percentage of neutered cats towards the balance point. This worked well where branches had enough available volunteers, but was very labour-intensive.The second phase abandoned the idea of repeated surveys and simply involved grants for neutering in areas which experience had shown to be persistent sources of requests to take in unwanted cats and kittens. This continues to a limited extent and all branches are also expected to offer help with the cost of neutering feral cats and cats whose owners are on state benefits.To some extent, there is also a third phase, the Community Animal Action Week where areas are selected and a variety of pro-active welfare services (micro-chipping, neutering, flea & worm treatment) are offered for a variety of animals, not just cats.The "Southampton Cat Survey" was published as part of the article: "Feral cats: their role in the population dynamics of Felis catus".Applied Animal Behaviour Science , Volume 65 , Issue 3, Pages 273 - 283J . Bradshaw