1. Understanding these Terms of Use

What we mean: To ensure that the meaning of these Terms of Use is clear, we have listed below some of the words which we use which have specific meanings:

  • "HerdPlan Account" an online account which provides access to the HerdPlan Service;
  • the "HerdPlan Service" the HerdPlan web-based service provided by us via the password protected section of the HerdPlan website at https://herdplan.co.uk
  • "we", "our" and "us" the joint providers of the HerdPlan Service, being SRUC (a company limited by guarantee, incorporated in Scotland with registered number SC103046, having its registered office at Peter Wilson Building, King's Buildings, West Mains Road, Edinburgh, EH9 3JG and registered as a charity in Scotland with registered number SC003712) and SRUC Innovation Limited (a limited company incorporated in Scotland with registered number SC148684 and having its registered office at Peter Wilson Building, King's Buildings, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JG);
  • "You" you, the person who accesses and uses the Service;
  • "Your Business" a sole trader, partnership or company which has a HerdPlan Account or HerdPlan subscription or which you own or otherwise work for.

2. Creating and accessing HerdPlan Accounts

How to apply for the HerdPlan Service: In order to access and use the HerdPlan Service: a HerdPlan Account must first be created for you as an authorised user of the HerdPlan Service.

  • The following types of users may use the HerdPlan Service:
    • Veterinary Practice – admin user: A person authorised by the veterinary practice to be the admin user to manage its HerdPlan Account can create a HerdPlan Account for your veterinary practice.
    • Veterinary practice employees: employees of a veterinary practice that operates a HerdPlan Account can join your veterinary practice’s HerdPlan Account as an authorised user.
    • Farmer – admin user: Livestock producers that are clients of a participating veterinary practice can access HerdPlan Accounts. A person authorised by a livestock producer to be the admin user to manage its HerdPlan Account can create a HerdPlan Account.
    • Farmer employees: employees of a livestock producer that operates a HerdPlan Account can become authorised users of the livestock producer’s HerdPlan Account.
    • Nutritionist/Consultant: A Nutritionist/Consultant that is not employed by either a veterinary practice or a livestock producer, but provide services to veterinary practices or a livestock producers, can create a HerdPlan Account.
  • All such users agree to comply with these Terms of Use. For more information about the registration process, please visit the HerdPlan Service or our website.
  • Refusal: We reserve the right, at our absolute discretion, not to accept an application to create a HerdPlan Account. We will generally refuse to create a HerdPlan Account for anyone who does not fall into any of the category of users identified above.
  • Formation of a contract: If we accept an application for the creation of a HerdPlan Account, we will confirm this by email and at that point a legally binding contract relating to use of the Service will be created between you and us and these Terms of Use will apply. Admin users and other users who apply for a HerdPlan Account to be created must ensure that you are authorised to enter into this contract for and on behalf of Your Business. All other users may only access a HerdPlan Account or use the HerdPlan Service subject to these Terms of Use. These Terms of Use shall govern our agreement with Your Business and with you.
  • Accessibility: We are committed to making our HerdPlan Service as accessible as possible to everyone. Please see the Accessibility page on our website for more information. We welcome your comments and suggestions about how to make the HerdPlan Service more accessible. If you are unable to access the information you require from this website, please email HerdPlan@sruc.ac.uk for assistance.
  • Payment: The HerdPlan Service is free to use for veterinary practices and to nutritionists or consultants, but we charge for each livestock producer use of the HerdPlan Service on an account by account basis in accordance with the pricing policy set out in our FAQs at https://app.herdplan.co.uk//my-practice/payment from time to time. Veterinary practices are responsible for paying the monthly or annual subscription fees to us for their livestock producer clients. We anticipate that the veterinary practice will recoup such subscription fees from their clients. Failure to make payment in respect of any livestock producer’s account will result in the suspension or closure of such account.
  • Cancellation of livestock producer’s subscriptions: There is a minimum 12-month contract period for each livestock producer’s subscription to the HerdPlan Service, payable annually in advance or monthly. Veterinary practices can only cancel a specific livestock producer’s account during the 12-month period contract period if the cancellation occurs within the first 14 days of the subscription/contract date, we will not charge the veterinary practice. If the cancellation happens after the 14-day period, the veterinary practice will be charged for that specific livestock farmer’s account for the 12 month period for an annual subscription or on a monthly basis during that 12 month period.
  • Transfer of livestock producer’s subscriptions: it is open to livestock producers to switch veterinary practices on the HerdPlan Service at any time. If the change happens after the first14-day period of the subscription/contract date, and if your veterinary practice has chosen an annual payment option, we will not refund the balance of the livestock producer’s annual subscription to you. If the change happens after the first14-day period of the subscription/contract date, and if your veterinary practice has chosen a monthly payment option, we will continue charging the veterinary practice for this livestock producer’s account until the end of the 12-month contract period. At the end of the relevant subscription period, any further charges will be allocated to the new veterinary practice.
  • FAQs: The FAQs at https://app.herdplan.co.uk//my-practice/payment do not form part of these Terms of Use.

3. Your obligations

Restrictions on use:

You must:

  • Own account: only access the HerdPlan Account which has been allocated to you
  • Business use: use the HerdPlan Service (including any materials obtained from this website) only on behalf of Your Business and solely for its legitimate business purposes connected with animal health plans relating to Your Business' livestock or your or the relevant livestock producer client’s livestock; and
  • Training for Vets: if Your Business is a veterinary practice, ensure that it has complied with the training requirements detailed in section 4 of these Terms of Use.
  • Prohibited conduct: You must not:
  • Disruption: do anything which could reasonably be expected to damage, disable, overburden, or materially impair the HerdPlan Service or our website generally or which is likely to interfere with any other party's use or enjoyment of the HerdPlan Service;
  • Unauthorised access: use the HerdPlan Service for the purpose of accessing any content which you should reasonably suspect you are not authorised to access; nor
  • Dispute IP: question or dispute our ownership of the intellectual property rights in the HerdPlan Service or this website.
  • Prohibited material: You are prohibited from submitting any material to us via the HerdPlan Service or otherwise which is or which links to or refers to any material which:
  • Objectionable: is threatening, abusive, malicious, defamatory, obscene, indecent, pornographic or otherwise sexually explicit, blasphemous, profane, intended or likely to incite racial or religious hatred, or is otherwise objectionable or offensive in any way in terms of standards prevailing from time to time in the United Kingdom;
  • Illegal: is unlawful or which encourages the commission of a criminal offence;
  • Infected: contains a virus, worm, trojan or other hostile computer program or malware; or
  • Breaches rights: infringes any intellectual property rights or data protection rights of any third party.
  • Security: You and Your Business is ultimately responsible for administering and safeguarding any passwords created to control access to any HerdPlan Account: please keep any password issued to you secure. You and Your Business agree not to attempt to obtain unauthorised access, via whatever means, to the HerdPlan Service or our website, the server on which our HerdPlan Service or our website is stored or any of our networks, computers or databases connected to our HerdPlan Service or our website; or attack our Website via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of service attack. By breaching this provision, you would commit a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990.

4. Training & support

  • We will provide reasonable training and support to veterinary practices and their users in relation to the use of our HerdPlan Service. Veterinary practices will be responsible for proving training to livestock producers and their users.
  • We also make training materials available on our HerdPlan Service that can be accessed by users.

5. Your data and intellectual property rights

  • Ownership of your data and intellectual property rights: We and the veterinary practices agree that the livestock producer retains ownership of any copyright, database rights or other intellectual property rights it has in any data transmitted using the HerdPlan Service including any Beef and Sheep Animal Health Plans: ownership of its rights in this data is not transferred to us. Our right to use and share your data and intellectual property rights: By transmitting, posting or uploading any data using the Service, you and Your Business grant an irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to allow us to:
    • Service provision: use the data for the provision of the Service (and share the data with our service providers, the veterinary practices and consultants selected by the livestock producer and authorised staff of the livestock producer for this purpose);
    • Disease control: share such data with The Scottish Government and other public authorities for use in relation to official disease control purposes (but we will only do this if we determine that we are reasonably required to do so on public policy or public or animal health/disease control grounds or by applicable law);
    • Legal requirements: share your data with any third parties where we are required to do so by law; and
    • Anonymised: use and share your data on an anonymised basis with pharmaceutical companies, research institutes, the Scottish Government, Quality Meat Scotland and any other third parties selected by us for use for disease monitoring and other of their own educational, business and regulatory purposes.
  • Personal data: You agree to HerdPlan using your personal data, including but not limited to for the purposes of administering your account details and providing the HerdPlan Service. For more information about use of personal information about you, please see our Privacy Policy.

6. Our data and intellectual property rights

  • Ownership of our data and intellectual property rights: All copyright, database rights, trade marks and other intellectual property rights in the HerdPlan Service and in this website generally are either owned by or licensed to us and nothing in these Terms of Use shall transfer any ownership rights to you or to Your Business. The words " HerdPlan" are trade marks of SRUC and SRUC Innovation Limited.
  • Your right to use our data: You are permitted to retrieve and display content from this website on the device from which you accessed or downloaded it solely for the purpose of using the HerdPlan Service in accordance with these Terms of Use or for the purpose of assessing whether to obtain such services from us (and you may print copies of such content solely for these purposes).
  • Restrictions on use of the HerdPlan Service or our website content: You may not (and may not permit others to):
    • Modification: modify any software or system or process or other content that you are not authorised to modify that is made available to you via the HerdPlan Service;
    • Ownership notices: remove, obscure or otherwise disassociate any of our copyright or trade mark notices from any copies of this website's content; nor
    • Unauthorised: otherwise use any of the content from the HerdPlan Service or this website in any manner not expressly permitted by these Terms of Use (and for the avoidance of doubt, you must not distribute nor publicly display any content from his website for any purpose not connected with animal health planning). Without our prior written permission, you may not copy, modify, alter, publish, broadcast, distribute, sell or transfer any material on the HerdPlan Service or this website or the underlying software code whether in whole or in part. You must not use any illustrations, photographs, video or audio sequences or any graphics separately from any accompanying text.
  • Linking to this website: You may only create a link to our website homepage https://herdplan.co.uk on the condition that you do not do any of the following:
    • Framing: create a frame or any other browser or border environment around this website;
    • False endorsement: in any way imply that we are endorsing any products or services other than our own;
    • Misrepresentation: misrepresent your relationship with us nor present any other false information about us; or
    • Unsuitable: create a link from a website which contains content that is distasteful, offensive or controversial, infringes any intellectual property rights or other rights of any other person or otherwise does not comply with all applicable laws and regulations. You may not create any link to any other page of this website, nor frame it, without our prior written consent, nor may you restrict or inhibit the use or enjoyment of it by anyone else.

7. Closing and suspending Accounts

  • Closure by us without cause: We reserve the right to close any HerdPlan Account or individual user’s accounts for any reason. Where we can, we will endeavour to give one weeks' notice. If a HerdPlan Account or individual user’s account is not used for a continuous period of 6 months, we reserve the right to close it without notice. We may also discontinue any feature of the HerdPlan Service immediately without notice.
  • Suspension while breach is investigated: If we reasonably believe that your HerdPlan Account or any individual user’s account is being used in any way which is not permitted by these Terms of Use, we reserve the right to suspend your access to the Service immediately, until the issue has been resolved to our reasonable satisfaction.
  • Closure on breach: If Your Business or you (or any of Your Business' other personnel who have access to the HerdPlan Service) fail to abide by these Terms of Use, we reserve the right to immediately cancel Your Business' HerdPlan Account without notice. We may also permanently ban Your Business or any individual user from accessing and using the HerdPlan Service. Upon closure of Your Business' HerdPlan Account, you must promptly destroy all materials obtained via the HerdPlan Service, save where retention is required by law.
  • If we end your rights to use the HerdPlan Service then you and Your Business must stop all activities authorised by these Terms of Use, including your use of the HerdPlan Services.
  • If a livestock producer requests a copy of your Sheep and Beef Health Plans at any time within a period of twelve (12) months following the termination of their account, we will provide a copy to you. We may delete such plans after the expiry of that period.

8. Disclaimer and liability

    IMPORTANT: This section restricts the extent to which we are liable for any losses which may be suffered in connection with your use of the HerdPlan Service. It also requires Your Business to compensate us for any loss we suffer as a result of your failure to comply with these Terms of Use.
  • What you are liable for: You and Your Business shall be held jointly and severally liable for any reasonable costs and expenses incurred by us as a result of breach of these Terms of Use by you.
  • What we are liable for: We do not restrict our liability (if any) for:
    • personal injury or human deaths resulting from our negligence;
    • fraud committed by us; nor
    • any other matter which it would be illegal to, exclude, limit or to attempt to restrict.
  • Exclusion of our liability: To the maximum extent permitted by law, we disclaim all implied warranties with regard to the information, services and materials contained on the HerdPlan Service and our website. All such information, services and materials are provided "as is" and "as available" without warranty of any kind and you and Your Business use the HerdPlan Service and this website entirely at your own risk. In no event will we be liable for any direct, indirect, special, punitive, exemplary or consequential losses or damages of whatsoever kind arising out of access to, or the use of the HerdPlan Service or this website or use of or reliance on any information or content contained in it, including loss of profit and the like whether or not in the contemplation of the parties, whether based on breach of contract, delict (including negligence), product liability or otherwise, even if advised of the possibility of such damages. For the avoidance of doubt:
    • Errors: The information on this website or accessible on the HerdPlan is not intended to constitute professional advice. We exclude all liability for errors or omissions from information, materials or functions in or of the HerdPlan Service.
    • Service standard: The HerdPlan Service is provided "as is". We make no guarantee that the HerdPlan Service will be suitable for your intended use, neither do we guarantee that it will be error-free, timely, reliable, entirely secure, virus-free or available, especially since we are dependent on the reliability of the Internet and your use of your own computer to access the HerdPlan Service. You and Your Business are responsible for configuring your information technology, computer programmes and platform to access the HerdPlan Services and our website. You should use your own virus protection software.
    • Disruptions:We will try to keep disruptions to a minimum but we may suspend the HerdPlan Service from time to time to carry out maintenance and support work and to investigate unauthorised use. We exclude all liability for business interruption resulting from the use or inaccessibility of the HerdPlan Service.
    • Third parties: We exclude liability relating to information provided by other users of the HerdPlan Service which you rely on or otherwise make use of. We exclude liability for misuse by third parties of information provided to other users of the HerdPlan Service. We also exclude liability relating to your collaboration with any third party as a result of using the HerdPlan Service or connected with any hyperlink on this website. We are not a party to any contract for veterinary or animal health services between any veterinary practice or livestock producer or with any other service provider or consultant that may access of use the HerdPlan Service. We are not responsible for any Beef and Sheep Health Plans developed using the HerdPlan Service and accept no liability for any reliance on the same. These Terms of Use does not give rise to any rights under the Contract (Third Party Rights) (Scotland) Act 2017 to enforce any term of this agreement.
    • Indirect loss or damage: In no event will we be liable to you for loss of profit, indirect or consequential damages, loss of business, loss of opportunity, lost management time, or for the death or injury or ill health of any animal.
    • Implied terms: We exclude liability for breach of any conditions implied by law (including without limitation any conditions of accuracy, security, completeness, satisfactory quality, fitness for purpose, non-infringement of proprietary rights outside the United Kingdom and the use of reasonable care and skill) which but for these Terms of Use might have effect in relation to the HerdPlan Service. Subject to the forgoing, our aggregate liability to you or Your Business for any breach of these Terms of Use, or otherwise in relation to the subject matter of this Agreement or your use of the HerdPlan Service whether arising in contract, delict, statute or otherwise, shall not exceed the sum of Ten Thousand Pounds (£10,000) Sterling in respect of for any claim or series of claims arising from a common cause.
  • Time limit on claims: In the event that our liability cannot be excluded, where permitted, we shall not be liable for any claims which you or Your Business fail to notify us of within 12 months of you or Your Business first becoming aware of the grounds for such claim arising.

9. General legal matters

  • Entire agreement: These Terms of Use describe the entire agreement between you, Your Business and us regarding the HerdPlan Service and your use of our website, and supersede any prior understandings or agreements. The headings are for convenience only and shall not affect the construction or interpretation of these Terms of Use.
  • Changes to this contract: We reserve the right to change these Terms of Use from time to time and therefore we may impose new or different Terms of Use on your use of the HerdPlan Service or our website. These additional terms will be posted here on this website or to the HerdPlan Service and will be effective immediately. Your continued use of the HerdPlan Service will be deemed to constitute acceptance by Your Business and you of all of the new terms. These Terms of Use may not otherwise be changed without our written consent.
  • Unsolicited email: You agree not to send unsolicited e-mails or otherwise contact any other user for the purposes of advertising or market research to the e-mail addresses or other contact details provided on this website or made available to you via the HerdPlan Service.
  • Transfer of rights & obligations: We shall be entitled to transfer our rights and/or obligations under these Terms of Use to another party. Neither you nor Your Business may transfer any of your rights or obligations under these Terms of Use without our written consent.
  • Waiver and severability: If either you or we ignore any breach of these Terms of Use, it doesn't mean that any further breach cannot be enforced. Similarly, if any part of these Terms of Use turn out to be invalid or unenforceable for some reason, then it will be replaced with a provision which, as far as possible, achieves the same purpose as the original, and the remainder of the agreement will still be binding.
  • Resolving disputes: These Terms of Use shall be governed by and interpreted in accordance with the laws of Scotland. If any party wants to take court proceedings in relation to the HerdPlan Service or this website, it must do so before the Scottish Courts. You and Your Business are responsible for compliance with any applicable laws of the country from which you use or otherwise access the HerdPlan Service.

    • We recommend that you print out a copy of these Terms of Use for your future reference.