Examination of Witnesses (Questions 520-539)
MR SEAN
SHINE, MR
PETER HOLMES
AND MR
ANDY NAISH
22 MAY 2006
Q520 David Taylor: Do you?
Mr Holmes: Yes.
Q521 David Taylor: Impacts on performance
certainly; impacts on capacity, but surely it is variability that
drives complexity.
Mr Naish: The reason for saying
that is that the scale and breadth of types of data...
Q522 David Taylor: Hold on, they
are likely to be more variable and more complex in themselves.
You did not say that, did you?
Mr Naish: Apologies.
Q523 David Taylor: That is all right,
I am not trying to pin you down. The fact is that I want to compare
what you have said with what Helen Ghosh said. She said, "At
the moment when we pressed the button, it was the bit that translated
validation into payment and at that last stage—rather like
a space rocket, where you use bits of your IT system for a purpose
for which you have not used it before, so you have your launch
and then your booster and whatever it may be—what we were
using was effectively a new piece which had been tested but not
tested in anger." Do you recognise that distinction between
tested and not tested in anger?
Mr Naish: Again, from an IT system
stand point, we had been through very thorough testing phases
prior to the release being delivered in October 2005. We had also
been through what we called a live data test during the early
part of 2006 where we took a copy of the actual data as it was
being worked on by the RPA.
Q524 David Taylor: Was that the first
time you had had real live data from the real fields in Leicestershire
and real components of farms?
Mr Naish: It was the first time
we had used the software that was delivered in October to process
the entitlements and payments part of the system against that
live data. The live data had been there and been worked on for
some time prior to that using the Land Register system.
Q525 David Taylor: It is quite difficult
to define test data on a scale of adequate complexity to check
out systems, is it not?
Mr Naish: It is, yes.
Q526 David Taylor: It is one of the
most difficult parts of the process, do you agree on that?
Mr Naish: It is, I do agree on
that.
Q527 David Taylor: Do you think that
the access to real live data from real people with real fields
was sufficiently early in the whole process to make you content
that all was well?
Mr Naish: We would always like
to do it as early in the process as possible. The difficulty with
this particular programme is that because it is the first time
through you can only start using live data once it has been captured
and processed for the first time and because this was the first
year of a new scheme prior to having the system in place there
was no capture of that data that enabled us to do a live data
test earlier than that point.
Q528 David Taylor: Were you surprised
that the volume estimates that the RPA had come up with had been
so far adrift, bearing in mind the changes that had taken place?
Mr Naish: I think it would be
true to say we were surprised, yes.
Q529 Chairman: Can we go back a bit.
The Rural Land Register, the basis of the mapping exercise, you
said in your evidence that this Register went live in September
2004. What exactly does that mean?
Mr Holmes: That means that our
software was fully developed, fully tested and put into operation.
Q530 Chairman: Fully tested. What
do you mean by fully tested?
Mr Holmes: Fully tested against
our system test and acceptance testing.
Q531 Chairman: Fully tested?
Mr Holmes: Fully tested.
Q532 David Taylor: Fully tested with
what?
Mr Shine: At that point there
were 500,000 land parcels that were moved into the Rural Land
Register. Prior to that period the RPA had been involved in the
digitisation process.
Q533 Chairman: When you talk about
digitisation can you explain what that means?
Mr Shine: Essentially what it
means is that you take a picture, a map of a field and turn it
into a part which can be put into a system.
Q534 Chairman: Where does this picture
come from?
Mr Shine: The picture comes from
that digitisation process.
Q535 Chairman: Who took the picture?
Mr Shine: As my colleague has
already said before and I apologise if I get too technical, underlying
within the Rural Land Register first is a mapping database that
essentially stores pictures of all the land in England.
Q536 Chairman: Is that by satellite
imagery?
Mr Shine: Yes, and other mechanisms.
It is essentially based on the ordnance survey mapping of the
entire country. That base is there. On top of that then goes what
is called a permanent boundary layer. It is in a sense the boundaries
of a piece of land.
Q537 Chairman: Who supplies the boundary
information?
Mr Shine: The farmer supplies
that because the farmer supplies maps to the RPA which says, "Here
is the piece of land that I own, here is the field and I mark
in the boundaries". In a typical situation of what affects
land is a river. As you will know the banks of a river will change
over time so in fact there are changes required to land boundaries
every year. In some cases farmers will have cut back their hedgerows
so they will be narrower.
Q538 Chairman: Let me make something
clear. The closing date for applications for the year in question
was May 2005.
Mr Shine: Yes.
Q539 Chairman: So are we saying that
between 2004 and at some point in 2005 the Rural Land Register
was not tested with any real data?
Mr Shine: As I said, to be precise
in September 2004 when the Rural Land Register went live for the
first time it started with 500,000 real land parcels, so there
was real data in it and the system was working.
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