GOVERNMENT vets charged with tackling the spread of TB in cattle herds have been taught how to play bongo drums as part of barmy training courses to teach them how to work together more effectively.

All 1,700 staff at the Animal Health agency have been told to attend the away- days, which also include playing games.

However, the move has angered frontline vets who have condemned the use of taxpayers' money for the musical workshops at a time when bovine tuberculosis is ravaging the South West.

Last night, the drumming sessions were branded an "embarrassment" for hardworking vets who had been put at the mercy of "well-meaning but lunatic bureaucrats".

The away-days were organised to give staff a chance to meet Animal Health bosses in an "open and informal environment", four years after the agency was first set up.

A spokesman said staff got to "hear first-hand about the wider challenges facing the agency, about our strategic level responses to these challenges, and to hear some of the thinking that lies behind them".

But a number of vets were appalled to find part of the day was taken up sitting in a circle and playing the drums when they could have been out on the road dealing with animal disease.

An Animal Health spokesman told the Western Morning News: "There was an exercise where staff were each given a drum and asked to drum to demonstrate how a rhythm is built up by working collaboratively rather than individually."

One vet had expected the day to be dominated by the latest efforts to tackle the spread of TB in cattle.

"Instead we wasted an entire day playing games, mucking about and banging drums," she told Farmers Weekly. "I am appalled that taxpayers are being asked to foot the bill for this when we are supposed to be fighting disease.

"Farmers are under stress, cattle are being slaughtered, sick badgers are suffering enormously and the disease is spreading to domestic animals. And what are we doing? Banging drums."

The training seminars have been condemned in the Westcountry. Tory MP Geoffrey Cox, a member of the Commons committee on environment, food and rural affairs, said: "While Devon and the whole of the South West is suffering from the worst accumulative outbreak of bovine TB that there has ever been, it will be no comfort to farmers that the Government veterinary service seems to think its vets are appropriately employed by banging drums on away-days.

"This is probably a distraction invented by some well-meaning but lunatic bureaucrat.

"It is absurd and an embarrassment for most serious and professional vets."

The Torridge and West Devon MP added that vets working in the region were working hard to deal with the disease but "there are too few of them".

Animal Health officials defended the conferences as "an opportunity for all staff to be removed from their normal work environment for one day, and were the first such staff-wide events to be held since Animal Health was inaugurated as an agency some four years ago".

A spokesman said: "The conferences sought to ensure that staff were informed and motivated, and a part of the day involved staff participating in a series of exercises which aimed to bring home the importance of effective team working in an interesting, involving and fun way.

"All staff had an opportunity to feedback their thoughts on the usefulness of the day, and we are pleased that overall this has been strongly favourable."