Select Committee on Agriculture Minutes of Evidence



Examination of witness (Questions 300 - 322)

WEDNESDAY 21 JUNE 2000

MS JANE BROWN

  300. But not all the CAP stuff?
  (Ms Brown) Not all the CAP stuff; not all the claim processing stuff.

  301. What proportion of staff in the RSCs at HEO level and above are locally appointed?
  (Ms Brown) The way the system works is that vacancies are advertised across the Department, so anyone can apply from London or another Regional Service Centre but, in practice, a pretty high proportion of the appointments, certainly at HEO level, would be local ones, people being promoted from within their own office, but we do have a bit of movement between—

  302. Most of them stay there. They do not move to other Regional Service Centres or elsewhere in MAFF?
  (Ms Brown) At SEO level and above, there is a fair bit of movement between offices.

  303. There is a table in the MAFF submission on disallowance figures. Most of it is disallowed to SAPS. That must be stupid farmers. It turns out to be "Sheep Annual Premium Scheme." How do these disallowance figures for Britain compare with disallowance figures in other European countries?
  (Ms Brown) We do not do too badly compared with other European countries but we have our share of disallowance.

  304. Are we right at the bottom of disallowance figures? Are we losing less money or are we high up?
  (Ms Brown) We are somewhere around the middle. It varies from year to year.

  305. If you have such an efficient structure, 85 per cent of the time and effort of which is involved in policing the CAP, why are we only in the middle in terms of disallowance? Why are we not right down at the bottom?
  (Ms Brown) Because we have not got it right on every occasion.

  306. Does that mean you are not being tough enough with the farmers?
  (Ms Brown) There are always judgments to be made on how tough you want to be in order to avoid any risk of disallowance.

  307. Of course. Where does the onus lie, in your view?
  (Ms Brown) We have a responsibility to make these payments in accordance with the EU rules. Therefore, we do need to avoid disallowance. That flows from the MAFF target, to make these payments in full compliance with EU rules. If we do not comply, we get disallowance.

  308. We have in the submission a vision of consumer benefits and great efficiency and the marvels that are going to flow from the new agency as recommended by PricewaterhouseCoopers, no doubt at enormous expense. It is going to bring genuine benefits to farmers and traders. It is going to enable claims to be processed more quickly. It is going to allow us to provide intelligent forms, to guide claimants with information. It is going to be absolutely marvellous but, as head of the service, let me ask you what is the effect on the lads and lasses out in the Regional Centres of this lyrical vision? Essentially, we are saying to them that the top people are going to be moved into the regional offices to do think work and you are going to be replaced by an "I speak your subsidy" machine.
  (Ms Brown) There will be some interesting jobs for staff in the new payment processing arrangements, but it is undeniable that there will be fewer staff involved than there are at present. That is an inevitable consequence of moving to a more IT based system and clearly that is not good news for the people concerned.

  309. Morale has been badly affected?
  (Ms Brown) People are worried. There is no doubt about that. They are keen to know how things are going to be taken forward.

Chairman

  310. You said that the National Scheme Management Centres would not go into headquarters. Where will they go?
  (Ms Brown) They would go into the new processing agency.

  311. They could all be centralised in one place, even if the centralisation were not at headquarters?
  (Ms Brown) If the new agency was to be centralised to a single site, yes, but I think it is more likely that the new agency will be on a number of sites.

  312. Some of the Regional Service Centres will stay, will they?
  (Ms Brown) I think that is likely.

  Chairman: That is a fair deduction. We can finish our "Paxman" discussion.

Mr Marsden

  313. In terms of standards, how soon can a farmer expect a reply to a letter that he sends in to the service?
  (Ms Brown) The RSCs work to a target of 10 days for handling correspondence.

  314. What sort of responsibilities do the farmers have in terms of being able to help the Regional Service Centre in relation to "dos" and "don'ts"?
  (Ms Brown) The "Commitment to Service" booklet lists things that they can do to help us.

  315. What sort of things are those?
  (Ms Brown) I do not have that at my finger tips, but things such as providing accurate information and clear identification of the query that they want answered and those sorts of things.

  316. You have got one out of nine. The Customer Satisfaction Survey conducted in 1995 says, "Whilst customers are deriving the benefits of the pledges made in the [Commitment to Service], the great majority of them are unaware that the service provided by RSC staff has been determined by it". More recently, that has been backed up by the National Sheep Association's finding that 87 per cent of members surveyed were unaware of the new regional performance standards. Do you think that it matters whether the customer knows what the standards are? What is MAFF doing to raise awareness of the document?
  (Ms Brown) In January we sent copies of the new "Commitment to Service" booklet to all farmers. Whether farmers read it or whether it went into the bin with all the other unsolicited literature that they receive is up to them. We have done what we can to publicise it. Certainly, if they want to know what our standards are, they should not have any difficulty in finding them out. That is the key point.

  317. Eight out of 10 of your customers do not know what those standards are. It is difficult to enforce them from the customer point of view, if they do not know what they are. People do not read the bumph that they receive through the post anyway.
  (Ms Brown) We are not trying to force those on the customers.

  318. From the customers' point of view, customers need to know what the standards are, in the first place, to enable them to help drive up standards. If they do not know what the standards are they cannot be empowered.
  (Ms Brown) We have a responsibility to publicise them, as we do, and when they come into the offices we try to ensure that they know what they can expect and, equally, what we expect from them.

  319. How do individual RSCs select the members of regional liaison groups?
  (Ms Brown) That is the responsibility of the regional director, who is asked to select people who will give a good spread of local knowledge and contacts.

  320. There is no consistency between the RSCs, as far as you are aware, in terms of the membership of those regional liaison groups?
  (Ms Brown) There is a fair degree of consistency, but they are not told, "You must have no less than eight and no more than 12 and they must come from such and such organisations". I do not think that would fulfil the objective of getting a spread that was representative of a particular region.

  321. Can you give examples of where views expressed in the regional liaison groups has resulted in a change of policy by MAFF?
  (Ms Brown) I am not sure whether I can think of any specific changes of policy, but I can certainly think of ways in which the feedback that comes through the regional liaison groups influences the policy-thinking in the department.

  322. The Regional Panels have been replaced by ministerial visits. What are the advantages of the two systems of regional consultation—regional liaison groups and ministerial visits? How would you sell that as a package in terms of consultation?
  (Ms Brown) The point of moving to the system of regional liaison groups was to get a broader spread of contacts into the system. The panels were very much farmer-focused and there was a feeling that Ministers wanted to meet a wider range of representatives of the rural community. As far as I know, that is working pretty effectively.

  Chairman: Thank you very much indeed, Ms Brown. I have one small thought to cheer you up as you go. The form of the Irish IACS panel says that if you hold a milk quota on 31 March 2000 "please tick (X) this box"! Thank you very much.


 
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