Examination of Witnesses (Questions 200
- 219)
WEDNESDAY 14 JUNE 2000
MR RICHARD
CORK AND
MR TOM
FARNHILL
200. Do you think at least part of the issues
identified by PricewaterhouseCoopers would be down to a management
failure and that changes could have been made at an earlier date?
Clearly, changes are now being made but to some extent there is
an allegation—this is very much a synopsis of the argument
of PwC—that changes should have been made at an earlier
stage and you are now trying to catch up and deliver things in
a different way.
(Mr Cork) Firstly, I think I would lay no blame at
the door of regional management at all. I think regional management
have done their best with the tools they have been given. However,
I do think there is some validity in saying that the senior management
of the department could perhaps have anticipated some of the changes
and developments which may have been on the horizon. Once again,
it does all come down to money and resources. One has to work
with what one has. It has to be said that the Ministry has not
been flooded with money over the last few years and it perhaps
has had to tailor its priorities accordingly. I have to say that,
in PricewaterhouseCoopers' report, that concept is somewhat at
odds with their big bang approach to what they are now proposing.
I think it is true that changes should have been under way and
should have been made on a gradual and evolving basis, because
that is the most sensible way to introduce them. The question
now is whether or not it would be still feasible to do that or
whether there has to be radical, rapid change made in order to
bring the department back on to the line that many feel it should
be on. Our view is that it should not; it should still be a considered
process and that can still deliver what is necessary to be delivered.
Mr Öpik
201. You may not have a view on this but how
do you feel about Wales as it is regarded within the culture of
the Regional Service Centres? Maybe it is not regarded any differently
to anywhere else.
(Mr Cork) I think it is regarded as being something
separate because there is no real organic link, if you like, between
the process in Wales and the RSCs, possibly one exception being
Worcester, which has some cross-border responsibilities, and certainly
regarding recruiting staff for the state veterinary service in
Wales, but apart from that I think the RSCs regard Wales as another
country.
Mr Jack
202. I want to probe the area of IT, both from
the standpoint of the processing system, remarks about which you
have made already, but also from the input side, from the farmers'
standpoint. Am I right in saying that you represent members who
are active in different government departments right across the
piece?
(Mr Cork) PCS as a union does. We as representatives
are only concerned with the Ministry of Agriculture.
203. You have made some fairly strong comments
in the evidence you submitted to the Committee about IT; and also,
in the second part of the evidence, which is "Managing Change
in MAFF CAP Scheme Delivery—The Critical Questions Yet to
be Answered". We will come on to look at those in just a
moment. You have done an analysis and you have given us a flavour
of that already. In preparing for that, did you consult with any
of your other colleagues in other parts of government to see whether
there were systems of processing the relationship between people
outside and people inside? People outside have complex personal
situations—for example, the Child Support Agency, much attacked,
but dealing with some of the most sensitive issues in a series
of geographically dispersed arrangements, the ability to passport
information around to different centres for purposes of work sharing
and so on and so forth. They have a system which works. Did you
look at that? Did you look, for example, at the way the Inland
Revenue deals with self-assessment, another complex area of tax;
very personal; need for resolution of problems as part of the
process. Did you look at any of these parallels and see if you
could learn lessons or draw conclusions that could be relevant
to this?
(Mr Cork) Yes, we consulted with colleagues in departments
and considered various processes. The conclusion confirmed our
conviction that MAFF is a completely unique entity in terms of
what it does, because of farming being a unique process, one which
is very diverse, one which is very much related to the particular
environment which it takes place in, to obviously seasonal changes,
developments, and the fact that there is such a wide number of
schemes and differing schemes that are being developed and processed
in parallel or at different times of the year. Our feeling was
that there were not other departments that were comparable in
terms of the delivery needs. That is not to say that there are
not systems which could perhaps be developed from other departments
in order to do that. I hope we have made it clear in everything
we have said that we are not at all opposed to the concept.
204. For example, tax deals with every aspect
of human financial and economic activity. If you take oil taxation,
which is a fiendishly complicated area, there is an oil taxation
office in Aberdeen which deals with the United Kingdom's oil tax
questions. It focuses and specialises in that area. Parallel to
that would be the British Cattle Movement Service which deals
only with that. One of the questions that one of my colleagues,
Mr Todd, was asking earlier was about the range of costs. I wondered
whether you felt that a model based on specialisation like the
British Cattle Movement, which deals with the diverse nature of
cattle throughout the United Kingdom, dealing with cattle passports,
where there are obviously going to be occasions for dispute resolution—does
that offer any kind of a model that would work in the context
of specialised processing for special purposes?
(Mr Cork) There are two points I would like to make.
One is about the comparison with tax. Obviously, the oil tax is
not something that is applicable to every individual who pays
tax; whereas with MAFF most of the schemes are being run more
or less by most of the clients, if you like. BCMS, we feel, has
been a success from our point of view. We think it works well
because it is dealing with a distinct process and is able to apply
that in a consistent way across the whole country. In theory,
one could say, yes, specialising units around the country dealing
with a particular scheme could well be a feasible way of operating.
205. Would that be, if you like, developing
on the lead roles which different service centres have for different
schemes?
(Mr Cork) One could do that, yes. The problem though
is the number of schemes and the differentiation in size of those
schemes. You could not actually necessarily have a specialising
centre that dealt with just one scheme. You may have to have more
than one in order to make it cost effective.
206. Underpinning all of this is inevitably
some kind of IT scheme. You have been particularly critical on
page three of your evidence to the Committee, attacking the Pricewaterhouse
proposals. You tell us: "We do not believe that this can
be achieved under the PwC proposals. This is what our members
who do the work day in, day out, are telling us. What MAFF could
be facing is yet another high profile computer disaster such as
has dogged the public service over the last few years ..."
and then you go on to give us the rhetoric on that. What is the
ideal model in your judgment, if you reject the PwC proposal?
(Mr Cork) I will spare you the rhetoric again. To
be clear, what we are criticising is not the IT system, absolutely
not at all. What we are criticising is the belief that is expressed
by PricewaterhouseCoopers that you can introduce a new IT system
in one go, at the same time as changing the whole structure and
the working practices. It is the way in which it is proposed to
be introduced that we are so critical of, not the system itself.
207. How would you do it? Have you a thought
as to how you would introduce change in an orderly, proper way
that would not get you into this high profile computer disaster
scenario?
(Mr Cork) The first thing one has to do is to trial
a new system to make sure it works because it would have to work
from day one if you were to rely on it entirely by itself. Otherwise,
you are running the risk of disallowance, in our view, if something
goes wrong and you have no fall back. We are very conscious that
the Public Accounts Committee criticised other high profile disasters
on the basis that they did not have some kind of contingency plan
which, if it did not work, could be used as a fall back. What
we are saying is by all means, yes, develop a new system. Our
members want a new system; they want better technology. Introduce
it first as a trial, spread that trial out, do it on a gradual
basis, a considered basis, so that you can iron out the problems
as they arise, because they always will arise, and then when you
are confident that it can deliver the job remove the supports
and leave that as the sole system.
208. Given that you are strong on trialling,
what can you tell us about this Cambridge pilot project? Have
you looked at that?
(Mr Cork) All that is trialling is the electronic
forms, to see whether they work. Once again, you will have to
speak to the people who are doing that, but there have been some
problems with that which are being ironed out, but one would expect
that with any trial. I do not think that is necessarily a significant
problem. I think it has established that it is feasible to have
electronic submission of forms, which is not something that we
are opposed to at all. I think there are wider problems with what
one does about electronic signatures but that is another issue.
In terms of the feasibility of the system itself, that trial has
been reasonably successful.
209. On page four of the second part of your
evidence, you say, "We find that we have as yet had no meaningful
discussions with MAFF management on the stages of Input and Processing
of grant and subsidy applications. We maintain that the consultants
have seriously misinterpreted the needs of the process as determined
by the practical needs of the farmers." You have just told
us that you think this electronic forms experiment is actually
working but here you put some strong words in saying, "We
have not been part of this process."
(Mr Cork) We have not been part of the process. We
found out that that trial was going on by accident, which we think
is unacceptable. We have had to catch up on what has been happening
with that trial but what we are referring to in that passage you
have just quoted from is any detailed explanation of how the actual
working practices will operate under the system that is envisaged
by PricewaterhouseCoopers; how will it fit together. This is what
we have not had any chance to discuss. I am not sure that any
real thought has been given to it by senior management.
210. My final area of questioning is put from
the farmers' side. I wonder whether you now regret the sentence
that appeared on page three of your submission when you put a
line in here about who might be able to act as a third party agent,
in the context of helping farmers to send forms in. You said in
the first paragraph of this part of your evidence: "We do
not accept that 100% of all farmers will be in a position to use
the Internet to do business with MAFF within the next couple of
years as PwC's report suggests. PwC have proposed that `third
party agents' could act on behalf of farmers who could not or
did not want to deal direct with MAFF ...". The final telling
sentence of that paragraph says: "One senior MAFF official
has since suggested that charities or the Women's Institute might
wish to take on the role of third party. PCS believes that the
whole situation is now bordering on farce." Given the newfound
power of the Women's Institute, I wonder if you would like to
comment a little bit about that part of your evidence?
(Mr Cork) I think I stand by what we said. I would
be interested to know who would have the nerve to go and ask them
to do it.
211. What about this question of running effectively?
What underpins this is the traditional role of the farmer's wife
doing the administration. Some clearly are going to be very IT
literate and madly enthusiastic, as the president of the NFU said,
depending on the family situation; others are not. It is almost
a two tier argument. Is there anything you want to alert us to
in the implications for a two tier arrangement of IT literate
or third party agents inputting for farmers and others who just
do not want anything to do with it?
(Mr Cork) We are concerned about the farmers as well.
There is a real danger, from our point of view, that you will
get a two tier service. Those who are either IT literate or who
can afford to pay for third party agents to do it for them will
get a fast track service; whereas those who cannot will fall further
and further behind. This links to the comments made about the
tenant farmers. It is the poorer farmers, the ones who are perhaps
struggling the most in some ways at the moment, who are going
to fall further and further behind in this particular race unless
some specific provision is made for them. Once again, we have
never suggested that we will not ever get to the position where
100 per cent of farmers will be able to use the internet. It is
a question of the timescale involved and ensuring that there is
no disadvantage in the process. We are concerned about that, certainly.
Mr Hurst
212. I do not know whether you were surprised
when Mr Jack suggested you look to the Child Support Agency as
a role model but leaving that to one side for a moment I am in
the dark ages when it comes to computers. Could you explain to
me how mistakes can be avoided if a farmer, his wife or his daughter
completes the form electronically rather than with a pen?
(Mr Cork) The only advantage in respect of the completion
of the form is that the forms which are being developed, as I
understand it, will be able automatically to identify basic errors,
so obviously if you put something in the wrong box it will be
able to say, "No, that is not right. You should not have
done that." Where that leaves someone if they do not know
what they should have done is another matter altogether.
213. That does not deal with the question that
there is no one on hand to advise, does it?
(Mr Cork) No, it does not. The best it can do is indicate
that a problem exists. It cannot resolve that problem. That is
just not within its capacity. You need a person to resolve those
problems.
214. If one is dealing with someone for whom
it is not their first line of work to use computers, have you
any information as to the length of time it would take manually
to fill in a form as opposed to electronically filling in the
form?
(Mr Cork) I simply do not know. It would depend to
a certain extent on which scheme you are talking about. If you
are talking about IACS, it is a fairly considerable input, whether
manually or electronically.
215. Would there be an advantage in terms of
duplication, so far as the computer form is concerned over the
manual form?
(Mr Cork) I would not say so personally. You would
need to address that to someone else. I am not a computer expert.
Those who are developing that system would be the ones to address
that question to.
216. You do not have evidence to show that it
is quicker?
(Mr Cork) No.
217. There does not seem to be on hand assistance
for completion and there is clearly a cost to installing such
machinery.
(Mr Cork) Yes.
218. What is the advantage to the hard pressed
farmer, both in time and finance, of having such equipment?
(Mr Cork) I think that is a very good question. I
am not sure that there is a great advantage, apart from if it
works, as it is intended to work, it will be quicker to submit
it and theoretically it should be more secure than sending it
via the post. Theoretically, it would save the time of having
to travel to the office to deliver it by hand. It is a question
of speed of delivery. That, from my own personal view, is the
only advantage I can see in it. It does allow it then to be processed
electronically as well.
Mr Borrow
219. There is a significant advantage if the
system works in the sense that a farmer can submit the claim remotely,
feed in the information electronically and know that that information
is never resubmitted, as it is now, with the risk of errors in
the transfer from a paper form to an electronic system at the
Regional Service Centre. If it is submitted by the farmer electronically,
that is one data input and that data input is put in by the person
applying for the particular grant and it never changes in the
system from that point on.
(Mr Cork) That is right, although one has to recognise
that a new system will probably produce different problems. For
example, we all know the problems of e-mails going astray. It
will not remove all the problems but, for that particular one,
that would obviously be an advantage.
Chairman: Gentlemen, thank you very much indeed
for coming. If there is anything you wish you had said but you
have not, please let us know. If there is anything you have said
you wish you had not, there is not much we can do about it. If
there is any further point we want to pursue with you, we will
be in touch with you. We are most grateful to you and indeed to
your colleagues in the two service centres we went to for explaining
so fully their contract. Thank you very much indeed.
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