Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140
- 159)
WEDNESDAY 14 JUNE 2000
MR BEN
GILL AND
MR IAN
GARDINER
Mr Marsden
140. May I ask you, how satisfied are you with
the current arrangements? Scale them one to ten, ten being that
you are totally satisfied. Farmers are completely satisfied with
the system. Give me a number.
(Mr Gill) You find me almost speechless!
Mr Todd
141. I do not think I have ever heard a farmer
say ten to anything! On any subject.
(Mr Gill) It would be greater than five but less than
ten.
Mr Marsden
142. So it is fair to say, at the moment, that
you are saying that the status quo is not bad. It seems
to work okay, although maybe there needs to be one or two changes.
(Mr Gardiner) Yes. Our contacts with our members—plus,
of course, the MAFF system, which does customer surveys—all
tend to show that farmers are satisfied with the administration.
When they separate the administration from the actual system,
they are very happy with the administration. As the President
has said, there are, however, very large sums of money relative
to a farm business at stake; so they are very cautious about changes
and rightly cautious about changes to that system. Not very much
knowledge of the changes is widespread in the farming community.
Sometimes what there is, is not an accurate reflection, it seems
to us, of Ministry plans. One thing that is absolutely clear is
that if there are major changes to go ahead, the earlier the information
and accurate information plans are put to the farming community;
and if there are some sensible questions like: would a design
which had more temporary MAFF offices, which were smaller and
just form collecting offices, would that be better than the current
system; if their opinions were asked, they would be a lot happier
about a management change. After all, farmers try to run their
farms efficiently. They recognise the Ministry tries to run the
administration of the claims system efficiently. But when you
are very satisfied, or broadly satisfied with the current set-up,
you want to know that you are changing to a set-up which will
leave you as equally satisfied, if not more.
143. I accept that. What I am leading up to
is that the NFU seems to be reticent about changes, full stop.
Clearly the regional service centres, at the moment, are not delivering
what farmers want. We have heard criticism that the staff in those
centres, with the best of intentions, cannot deliver policy advice,
cannot deliver in terms of how to fill out a form and what is
in it, unless it is unofficial and off the record. That is not
satisfactory. In terms of the actual fact that they are there,
I totally agree with you. We need people to be there, and very
locally available, to be able to assist farmers. At the moment,
it is not there. It is not available. Let me give you an example.
The West Midlands. I would have thought that farmers in my constituency,
in and around Shrewsbury and Shropshire, would much prefer to
meet somebody, maybe from MAFF, just down the road, whether it
was in Shrewsbury, Telford, or wherever, and be able to hand in
their form and be able to talk and get proper advice, rather than
travel all the way up to Crewe and obviously then not be able
to get any advice—or at least have the peace of mind that
they have handed over a piece of paper—but clearly that
is not what they want, so why is NFU so reticent about changing?
(Mr Gardiner) I think there are a couple of points
there, Chairman. It is better for somebody in MAFF to answer about
the legal position of civil servants. Obviously the advice has
to be careful. There has to be a delineation between giving advice
on the meaning of general rules and the particular application
to that farm, where it may be more appropriate for a farmer, if
he is in serious doubt about the application of the general rule
to his IACS form, to seek professional advice.
144. That costs money.
(Mr Gardiner) That may be but again I think somebody
from the Ministry should answer that.
145. The NFU is supposed to represent these
farmers.
(Mr Gardiner) Surely.
146. The system is not working and you are saying
that the existing regional service centres are the best solution
but, by the way, farmers who cannot afford it should be going
and paying for professional advice.
(Mr Gardiner) I am not saying that at all. At least
70 per cent of farmers are members of the NFU where we give that
advice. Our regional staff have a raft of experience and information
about the system and those members who contact us get a great
deal of help. All of that is entirely free. It is part of our
service to our members. So I am not saying that farmers are short
of information. Nor are civil servants, in my experience, the
regional service centres, not helpful to farmers, but they have
to be conscious of certain limits. It is not up to them as to
what figures you put in the box. It is up to the farmer and his
knowledge of the form. There are some problems there.
(Mr Gill) We need to distinguish between farmers being
unhappy about the level of paper work they have to do, which is
the major factor. They are extremely frustrated not just by the
paper work but the potential for little errors and the consequences
of little errors being draconian. We have the long running example
of over- and under-declarations, where MAFF have failed to credit
under-declarations against over-declarations, and have levied
significant fines on those people.
147. Absolutely.
(Mr Gill) But these are not, in this sense, the points
about the service centre. That is a decision taken elsewhere,
upon those particular points, as a result of the Court of Auditors.
I was answering questions purely and specifically with regard
to the operation of the service centres in receipt of that information
as handed over. You then come to the broader question of the PwC
report, which is that there are gains to be made by electronic
transfer of the information. The trial that has taken place in
the Cambridge Service Centre has shown—and I think very
positively—that there are glitches in what is being done,
but they are not insurmountable. After all, as I have said, a
large proportion of Italian farmers, across the whole of Italy,
which are perhaps not noted for their abidance of the law—I
think they might have introduced a milk quota in Sicily 11, 12,
16 years on down the road—if that is the case, then we need
to look at that. The Cambridge trial has thrown up problems but
has been positive. Interest has been there. The feeling and fear
of farmers is that it will come up as a mass on screen, but make
a mistake and nobody will tell me. They are not aware that this
will be interactive. They are not aware that the suggestions are
that it will actually interrogate you and give the questions as
you fill in the form on a similar basis to physically handing
the form in. It is that fear of the unfamiliar that we have to
break down: not by force but by informing, enlightening and training
farmers, so that those who want to take it up can do so, but those
who still want to go the paper route have that option.
Mr Öpik
148. It sounds from all of this that if you
regard the farmer as the client and the regional service centre
as the supplier, then maybe a lot of the issues that my colleagues
here have raised are resolved, because the regional service centres
should be asking the question: how do we best supply the service
to the farmer? If that is right, and is one of the clarion calls,
it seems to me from what you are saying that they should be going
out to their clients, out to farmers, who want one-to-one contact
and who regard this as very important. Is that a correct assessment
or not?
(Mr Gill) I think it would be over-draconian for them
to do one-to-one visits to take in forms. There are enough farm
inspections already going on, by a multiplicity of Government
agencies, that causes a lot of annoyance amongst the farming community.
Farmers want to continue to be able to submit paper applications,
to submit them physically to a representative of Government in
person, (in this case, MAFF), which is absolutely crucial.
Mr Hurst
149. Replying to Paul Marsden, you indicated
the pilot scheme in Cambridge. Would you think that Cambridge
is perhaps a rather more electronically advanced part of the country
than other parts where your members might live and, therefore,
would not be typical of what you would expect?
(Mr Gill) I think that is a perfectly correct assumption.
I assume this is behind the decision to do another trial in Kington
in the West Midlands, which is more of a livestock based area,
where they are looking at training farmers.
Mr Drew
150. To move on to the performance of the different
centres. There is a variation in performance standards. Why do
you think that is so? Is that down to the individual offices or
is it down to the sectors that they mainline in? Or is it to do
with the forms that they would be dealing with in those sectors?
(Mr Gill) I cannot be sure. I suspect it is principally
down to the individuals concerned. You see this in any organisation
that is public or private. The success of a particular branch
varies enormously with the people in control of it.
151. Does the membership that you represent
complain about any one of the schemes, and find difficulties in
getting them processed correctly?
(Mr Gill) There is no particular scheme that stands
out as the bete noire of all of the applications that have
to be made. There is a major feeling that there is too much paper
work to be done, and the complexities are being made worse by
the reform of the CAP in the livestock sector. The concerns about
the extensification premiums are recorded there, together with
the slaughter premiums. This has made the paper work seem more
intense rather than reducing the complexities for farmers.
(Mr Gardiner) I would add to that. New set-aside for
industrial crops is another area where there may be significant
problems—not all of them but which may be either the farmer
or MAFF's problems—but also the processors. You have three
parties who have to be linked together administratively. That
makes it much more difficult.
152. Do you get many complaints about the time
taken to deal with particular enquiries?
(Mr Gill) It is not a major issue that I have been
made aware of in recent times, although there are certain cases
where there are delays. Once you get into a dispute over some
particular point, then it can be a lengthy process on that case,
where it can take several years and significant amounts of money.
This is frustrating, as is witnessed by the example I mentioned
a few minutes ago, of over- and under-declarations. One of the
big issues that comes up is not per se within what PwC
are talking about, but the variations in field measurements that
take place, which then reflect back to the form filling.
(Mr Gardiner) It is particularly so, when you become
involved in some of the finer details of the rules, where the
Ministry not only have to consult within themselves, but have
to go to the Commission for rulings. All of a sudden you can find
nine months have gone by with a farmer still desperately and greatly
worried about what his position on payment is going to be. That
is probably the major problem.
153. Do you communicate regularly with the farmers?
One of the things we saw last week, in going out in Northallerton,
was that the officials from MAFF were saying that they were not
allowed to give advice but were only able to communicate back
to say, "Sorry, this has not been dealt with, but this is
going to so and so." Is that your experience?
(Mr Gill) I am not aware that there is a communication
problem, save that there are significant time delays that Mr Gardiner
has just mentioned. In itself, because of the time delays, they
feel a vacuum there and they are worried about it. The problem
arises there that the Commission do not give descriptive advice
to Member States on how to interpret any piece of legislation.
Therefore, the Government has to second-guess what the Commission
intends. That is a secondary issue, which will be there until
the Commission changes its position.
154. What about the establishment of the National
Scheme Management Centres? Has that been fairly seamless and has
it improved things or is it too early to say? Or has there been
a deterioration since we have set out on that agenda?
(Mr Gill) I am not aware, from last summer, that it
has caused any differences. I suspect the differences have been
caused by what has been the effect internally to their benefit.
One particular centre comes straight on one particular area, so
you can focus on that.
(Mr Gardiner) It is that which can cause further communication
difficulties, because you now have a regional service centre specialising,
MAFF's central part, and you have Commission officials on the
hard cases. It may help the Board run but on the very detailed
hard cases it may make life a little bit more difficult.
155. Did the NFU support this move?
(Mr Gill) We were consulted about this move. We have
responded to it.
156. Again, on the visit last week to Northallerton,
both the management and individual staff made it clear that they
felt that their practice and procedures had improved quite dramatically,
partly as a result of IT. But they were of a mind: yes, we appreciate
that we still have some way to go, but we have gone a long way
in the recent few years. Is that the experience of the membership?
(Mr Gill) You will always find some members who have
particular complaints, but there are many occasions when I talk
to members who are satisfied with the service they receive from
the regional service centres.
(Mr Gardiner) I think it is an important point there
that the assistance which the MAFF staff get from their computing
system has undoubtedly improved over recent years. In fact, that
enables them to give a better service to our members, yes.
Mr Todd
157. How many farmers, do you think, own appropriate
computers for the use of submitting forms?
(Mr Gill) It is exceedingly difficult to be certain
of that sort of thing. In your question you have highlighted that
it is not just how many farmers have computers. Obviously they
have to have a computer that is compatible with the system. For
example, the first computer I bought for my business was an Applemac,
which has compatibility problems, owing to the age of the computer.
Not being aware of these sorts of points, is quite important for
farmers. What I am aware of is that this is changing quite rapidly
within our own organisation, if there is a comparator. From this
month, for my central Chairman's Committee we will be transmitting
all the agenda items paper work using electronic transmission.
Now when we tried this three or four years ago there was, "You
won't get me doing that." It has moved on from there. We
have members, whom I would have thought would have been totally
resistant to the use of this technology, ringing me up and saying,"We
are into e-commerce. Why are you not doing more to help us on
this?" It is quite amazing. You get some very big surprises
in this. Some people have bitten the bullet. They may have a son
or a daughter who has helped them and they have got hooked on
it.
Chairman
158. Or your wife.
(Mr Gill) Is there any reason why the wife might be
more in favour of going into technology? I had better not go into
that!
159. In my constituency the filling in is often
done by the wife.
(Mr Gill) That is right. But it is the training. I
do not know what happens there. It is breaking down this barrier,
almost of fear or something, that they cannot control.
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