Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120
- 139)
WEDNESDAY 14 JUNE 2000
MR BEN
GILL AND
MR IAN
GARDINER
Chairman
120. Thank you very much for coming. You know
what we are doing. We are looking at the future of regional service
centres in the light of the PricewaterhouseCoopers report. We
have had quite a lot of evidence. We visited Crewe. We visited
Northallerton. So we are now going to talk to you and to the Service
Centres' Union people and then we have the Minister. That is the
shape of the thing. If farmers had a way of handing in their IACS
forms, so that they could get the sense that they have handed
it in; they have had a receipt for it; "Phew, we have got
it out of the way. It is done and we know it is safe"; if
you were to take that function and separate that from the service
centres: is there anything left in the service centres that requires
them to be where they are, in the number they are?
(Mr Gill) For the record I am Ben Gill,
the President of the National Farmers' Union of England and Wales.
On my right is Ian Gardiner, who is our Deputy Director General.
Is there anything left for the regional service centre? I find
this question almost like saying: why do we not do everything
by video conferencing? In theory you can do, but it is the human
touch that is there, which quite often is important. People forget
things. People want to be able to go and see somebody face-to-face
to get the form. So there is something. Whether it is quantifiable
in any serious size is another question. For those individuals
who have a problem, where they need to be in touch, it is important.
I, in the past, when I have forgotten to do something until the
last minute and I want to see it checked and done: I remember
one occasion when I found, right at the last minute, because the
rules had changed with regard to family partnerships for the ewe
premium, I had forgotten to effect a formal transfer of a sleeping
partnership as regards to MAFF's knowledge. I had to rush up and
get everything done there and then. The ability to have someone
there who can say, "You have this right, you have filled
in the right forms, it is done," gives a degree of reassurance,
which is actually quite important for farmers with much at stake,
for failure to make these declarations properly.
121. What struck me is that even very, very
large farmers—and I spent two days last week judging the
Farmers Management Competition at the East of England Show—managers
with 5,000 acres still took their forms to the regional service
centre. They are accepted but nobody was checking that form for
accuracy of content. They were checking that the boxes were filled
in correctly.
(Mr Gill) There is also the fact, Chairman, of the
unreliability of the mail. It is sometimes less than it used to
be in accuracy. I, personally, in my area, have had, in the last
three months, to my certain knowledge, three important pieces
of mail just lost. You worry about that. When you have tens of
thousands of pounds at stake, the security of physically handing
it over rather than even relying on registered mail, is something
that you feel is actually a very important part of the business.
That is why people do this. There is also the sense of relief
that is quite clear, certainly for those who worry about filling
in forms. Some of the questions there are quite daunting. What
is the answer? I find myself looking back to the previous year's
application to try and find what the answer was because I have
forgotten what the answer should be to some of the technical points.
So it does become very daunting for anybody.
122. Say, a caravan with MAFF people in it,
at the auction market. That could be done, could it not?
(Mr Gill) Indeed it could. Or the local hotel. If
you visited Northallerton they have a record—I think they
still do it—of hiring hotels and allowing farmers to go
in and deliver the form. That is perfectly adequate for that purpose.
When it is the time of year with IACS, that focus is on it, time
of year prior to the submission of the ewe premium, etcetera.
123. What is the NFU view of the PricewaterhouseCoopers
report? Are you broadly sympathetic to the idea that some changes
are necessary?
(Mr Gill) We have an approach to this. We recognise
the need for ever increasing efficiency. We are enormously concerned
about the level of paper work that our members face. The time
it takes to fill those forms out. The checking of mistakes that
are made. There is a clear need to minimise, at every opportunity,
potential for just translation errors from one paper to another.
How many times have we all, for example, been given a telephone
number in our ear, a telephone number to write down, and we "misorder"
the numbers when we write them down? We do it quite simply and
without realising it. Every time you have to write a form down
this happens. I find, in my IACS forms each year, probably about
a fifth of my fields have to be redefined to fit in set-aside
and other things, which have altered field boundaries. That requires
total transcribing of the information. There is a potential for
error.
124. Do you set down set-aside as a separate
field?
(Mr Gill) No. You may have had a field divided between
two crops one year and it becomes one the next year. For set-aside
we have to go to a different percentage. It is varied. We have
to do part fields for set-aside. All these things happen. So you
are changing things every year. Every time you are transcribing
the number there is a potential for error, so the ability to go
towards electronic use has an attraction but it has very real
fears as well. I was frightened of a computer until my young sons
told me how to do it. If you have not got a young son who can
actually remove that fear, it is something that is quite daunting.
Mr Jack
125. What about daughters?
(Mr Gill) And daughters as well. I happen to have
sons!
Chairman
126. Is the NFU not tempted at all by the thought
that there is a business opportunity for it here in actually acting
as an agency to help farmers fill in their forms, verify their
forms, make sure they are delivered? Just like the tax inspector,
who is like a tax adviser when I submit my forms to the Inland
Revenue. Do you not see that there could be a business opportunity
here? Are you not tempted by that?
(Mr Gill) There is an opportunity to help our members
in many fields. There are existing situations where our group
secretaries have helped people, advised them on the filling out
of their forms, not just on ewe premiums but across the board.
Until he passed away, there was one group secretary in the north
west who forbade his members from filling out any form. He had
his own duplicate sets of forms and they came in and made an appointment,
told him the information, he filled out the official form, and
they signed it. He said this was far easier because they made
mistakes themselves and at least he could sort the mistakes out
if he had made the mistake on their behalf. The liability actually
scared us very severely but his members relied on him totally,
so much so that he had virtually 100 per cent membership in his
area. Of course, we look to what members' needs are.
127. If you went electronic, that sort of role
could be taken on by you?
(Mr Gill) It depends how we go electronic. One option
might be to find some arrangement for every farmer, if they want
to, to have a computer in their farm office and train them to
go with it. Equally, an opportunity would be the computers that
we have in our own offices, which would be a point where members
could take their own information to their group secretary and
file that information on to the MAFF database. I understand, for
example, that in Italy, that is the practice which is prevalent
and has been for some time.
Mr Jack
128. In your memorandum you talk about the fact
that you represent 55,000 farmers in England and you go on to
say: "We are conscious that MAFF regional service centres
provide a first contact point for farmers into MAFF over a wide
range of issues." What percentage would you estimate of your
members actually physically, in the way you have just described
to us, make some kind of annual contact with a regional service
centre?
(Mr Gill) Until the forms for the CAP a negligible
number, since the reform of CAP, I have no idea what the percentage
would be; but I would think it would be the vast majority of farmers,
who make contact through the submission of their forms, or queries
they have on those forms. My early experience of the standard
of service we have had from some of those regional service centres
has actually been very, very good.
129. When you say "you think", is
this across all sectors of farming? Are we saying that no farmer
feels reassured enough, if you like, to send their forms off or
to enquire by telephone? They all have to go along? If that was
the case, we might have had reports from our visits indicating
that there were queues and queues of farmers, but I do not quite
get that impression.
(Mr Gill) If you go at the end of April, start of
May, you will see queues of farmers. You are given a number when
you turn up and you sit and wait. I have not done it myself personally
because someone else has done it on my behalf in the last few
years. But you could wait. In more recent years it has been half
an hour initially—but it could be an hour—to be seen.
There would be as many as ten or 15 MAFF officials in the room
working, taking on forms, in a very business-like way. So, yes,
there are queues. Yes, it is very orderly. It is very efficient
in that way in terms of time waiting.
130. Given the diverse nature of farming, does
that picture you have just painted apply to all sectors of farming?
(Mr Gill) Obviously it does not apply if you are a
pure horticulturalist who has, in no way, a need to make any applications
to MAFF for payments. The IACS application form covers not just
arable aid, it covers the grassland sector as well, and you have
to fill that in for HFAs and, of course, ensure that you can account
for your stocking densities not just on arable farms as well.
131. One of the features that has come through
from various bits of evidence, when you talk to farmers, is this
idea of local knowledge. How relevant is that? The picture you
have painted is one of people concerned about the reassurance
that somebody official takes the form and somebody official checks
the boxes. In terms of different farming regimes, how much is
this local knowledge important, do you think, in terms of resolving
some of these difficulties?
(Mr Gill) I think there needs to be, in any system,
a brand of local knowledge of their people. There needs to be
some background. Someone can pick up, "He is always doing
things wrong." There is also the alternative, "I have
never had any problems with this person before. This seems to
be a totally genuine mistake." So you have that history of
the case, which may be available if you did it on a central database,
but not as regularly as a personal visit. Farmers are intensely
personal people. They like to feel they are dealt with in a personal
way. That should not preclude change but it answers the question.
Farmers and growers like to feel they have a point of contact.
In certain cases, I could imagine, for example, say someone who
is applying for a special premium has cause to ring up on a regular
basis. Over the telephone there are relationships which develop
an understanding of that particular situation.
132. For example, on my tax affairs, as all
Members of Parliament are public servants, they are handled in
Cardiff. The man I speak to from time to time might have got some
inkling about my tax affairs but he could be in Cardiff, he could
be in Edinburgh, he could be anywhere. As long as he has the technical
knowledge, where he is does not make any difference.
(Mr Gill) That is correct. As, indeed, all vehicle
licensing is done at Swansea. But, my goodness, do we not see
a lot of mistakes coming out on that, which is pretty soul-destroying.
If I look at all the vehicle registration documents and driving
licences of my family, I would think that out of a dozen we probably
have two that are properly identified down to the exact last letter
and post code. It is simple transcription errors. What we are
aware of is that in our sector those sorts of errors would make
applications, quite often, invalid. That worries us. It worries
us enormously because more than ever now any invalidation of claims
could mean the difference between survival—in fact, probably
would mean the difference between survival—and failure.
133. In terms of the location, at the moment
the RSCs are stand-alone organisations but there has been some
discussion as to whether they should be subsumed into Government
Offices as part of a one-stop approach. How would you feel about
that? For example, instead of places like Crewe being the location,
it was stuck in the heart of Manchester for that part of your
request.
(Mr Gill) The relocation of any residual element of
the MAFF regional service centres within the Rural and Regional
Development Agencies would cause us enormous concern. We do not
believe it would be appropriate for them to be there. The difficulties
of anybody gaining access to someone in the centre of Manchester
or Birmingham would be quite profound and make it very much harder.
The siting of the MAFF regional service centres has been done
in a very considered strategic approach—not without problems
in itself—but done with a degree of sensitivity that has
enabled people to establish those relationships, particularly
when you add on the out-stations that they have built.
134. If we look at what is happening in the
world of the Rural Development Plan, there is an attempt to look
at the farm as a business, not just as a farming activity. I know
you could say that farming is a business, but there is the idea
of looking at the assets of a farm and saying: what else could
happen? Some of the boundaries of sources of help are gradually
being rubbed out. Some of the things the DTI do become relevant
to farming. Are you still saying to me that you really do think
that these centres should be separate from the rest of government
because of the unique nature you describe as farming, notwithstanding
the direction of policy, which is looking at farming not just,
if you like, as a food production business, but as a business
entity?
(Mr Gill) On the one hand, you are saying to me that
we should make use of IT and, therefore, we do not need to have
proximity to the farmer. On the other hand you are saying, we
need to have the proximity of Government Departments to work together.
That does seem a little incongruous. The reality, in my mind,
I would hope—and, from my knowledge of the personnel, the
ability to use the technology—would be far greater, far
more widespread, at the Government departmental level. The need
for personal contact is far greater to the farmer at Government
level.
Mr Todd
135. For the avoidance of doubt, you see no
obvious value for the processing function of forms being carried
out in the current location. There would be no value to the farmer,
that being the case?
(Mr Gill) I can see no problem about the actual location
of processing the forms. On that particular point, it does not
matter to me whether the person who rings up with a query is in
Cardiff, Plymouth, or Inverness.
136. The current locations, all locations chosen
are compromises, and from our initial visits it is clear that
those who live closest to the locations visit them most. Commonsense
would indicate that. That those who are furthest away tend not
to use them so much. Surely adherence to the current precise locations
is more to do with historical accident than precise definition
of need? You implied it was a rather scientific approach: carefully
chosen locations which were sensitive to farmers' requirements.
We have seen little evidence that it does more than assist a group
of farmers a great deal and others not so much.
(Mr Gill) Obviously, if a farmer is located very close
to the regional office, then there will be a greater ability to
use that office. If I gave the impression that the siting was
a precise scientific calculation, I apologise. I did not mean
to give that. The division of MAFF within the regions was done
to try to give some location with Carlisle and Northallerton,
to take the two northern examples, being placed in market towns
with relatively easy access, and with a distribution network of
roads that brings people to those areas relatively easily. They
can then be coupled with out-stations—caravans, if you want,
or somewhere which is rented—which can facilitate a greater
spread available of dialogue face-to-face with MAFF representatives.
137. But you are not necessarily adhering to
the view that the precise locations that there are now should
remain set in stone, bearing in mind that the delivery of the
services, as we have broadly agreed, may change sharply with processing
moving to other places; and with, perhaps, more diffuse arrangements
for the collection and initial validation of the forms?
(Mr Gill) Let me get it right. I am not saying—
I am agreeing—
138. You are agreeing with me?
(Mr Gill) Yes.
Chairman
139. So does Mr Gardiner. He was nodding with
approaching vigour at the time.
(Mr Gardiner) Just a couple of points. If you are
a farmer in Kent, having a regional service centre in Reading
is not really very useful to you. On the other hand, if you are
a farmer in the Midlands, I doubt if having a MAFF regional service
centre in the middle of Birmingham is going to be too useful for
large parts of the day when the traffic hardly moves. I am not
saying the current regime is right. From our viewpoint it is more
appropriate that at the peak times of the year, the IACS peak,
the sheep and suckler cow premium peaks, farmers have access to
places which they know will be taking their forms, and have a
guarantee of receipt. Of course, just to add to that, it is perfectly
true that electronic submission provides them with that guarantee,
just as much as going to a temporary or permanent MAFF site does.
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