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Learning IT…slowly

AS ONE Defra agency appears to be finally learning the painful lessons of IT rollouts gone wrong, another seems to have walked into the same trap.

Defra and the Rural Payments Agency infamously pressed the ‘go’ button on the agency’s creaking IT system in February 2006 hoping to launch thousands of SPS 2005 payments before the system was ready or had even been properly tested. The rest is history – as ex-Defra Permanent Secretary Dame Helen Ghosh put it so eloquently, the payments simply ‘gummed up’ the system which could not cope.

RPA has been dealing with the fallout ever since and now, six years on, appears to be reaching something approaching stability.

SPS 2011 payments, although there are still problems, are flowing more easily than ever before and communications – a massive failure in the early crisis-ridden days of SPS – are improving both internally and to farmers (or ‘customers’ as RPA still insists on calling them).

There is, unlike before, now ‘a plan’, as RPA boss Mark Grimshaw likes to say. The agency’s efforts to address its deep-rooted problems and to prepare properly for the massive challenge of CAP reform will be laid out in its soon-to-be-published five-year plan.

One lesson clearly learned is that never again will a system be launched without having been fully tested and shown to work.

Meanwhile, AHVLA is having its own problems with an IT roll out that has effectively ‘gummed up’.

The £12m project is, on one level, small fry compared with the scale of the RPA fiasco or other Government IT flops like the £12bn NHS waste of taxpayer money.

But it is having an impact on the control of bTB, from bureaucratic frustration at farm and vet level to delays in collection of reactors and the collation of data, at a time when the fight against the disease is being ratcheted up a level.

It raises a number of questions.

Why were the problems now being experienced with ‘Release 6’not picked up before it was rolled out? When will they be fixed? And at what cost?

Have Defra/AHVLA been as transparent with vets and farmers as they could have been?

All of this will no doubt be answered in the independent review commissioned into the problem by AHVLA. Farmers and vets will await the outcome with interest.

Why security fears won’t scupper badger cull (hopefully)

One issue has dominated the build up to, and announcement this week of, the two badger cull pilot areas.

Security – the protection of farmers, landowners, contractors and others involved from the threat of animal welfare extremists.

Behind the scenes, NFU and NBA officials have been imploring Defra and Natural England to ensure the names used to identify the areas as ‘general’ as possible – hence ‘West Gloucestershire’ and ‘West Somerset’.

The difficulty of maintaining this stance was highlighted even before the announcement was made, as leaks giving more precise locations were printed in a South West newspaper, to the immense annoyance of Ministers and industry leaders.

As Natural England follows what it believes is its duty to allow the local public to comment on the culls, it may be overly optimistic to expect the precise locations to remain under wraps until the early autumn.

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t right to try.

In addition, farmers in the areas are being reassured that their names will not be published, while the intention at this stage appears to be not to announce when the culls will happen.

It is a threat the Government is taking very seriously, possibly too seriously – the Home Office’s estimate of £500,000 a year to police the culls areas came as a surprise to Defra and industry figures involved in the policy. While it demonstrates a commitment to protect those involved, the seemingly excessive stance taken by the Home Office, which pushed to delay the cull until after the Olympics because of policing concerns is upping the ante on the whole issue of security.

After all, nobody knows at this stage how big as issue it will prove to be.

There will be protests and some direct action, for sure. But some of the key figures involved in drawing up the policy are quietly confident, based partly on the experience of the Randomised Badger Culling Trials and relatively muted public response to recent announcements on the policy, believe the threat may have been overstated.

Only time will tell, but that is their fervent hope.

The issue is, after all, of great significance to the success of the pilot culls. The two areas  partly because of the level of farmer support already secured within them. But they need more to ensure the 70 per cent land coverage target is met.
Personal security is, along with the financial cost, the biggest concern cited by those still wavering.

There is potentially a huge amount to gain in the policy in terms of the long-term health of England’s cattle and badgers. A number of important hurdles need to be overcome before it is rolled out nationally, including securing sufficient farmer sign up and, of course, delivering the culls effectively and humanely.

It would a desperate shame if the security threat – real or otherwise – got in the way of any of this.

So, to ensure security is not a make or break issue, it will take some bravery from those involved at local level, some common sense from Defra, Natural England and the police, and above all, clear public explanation from industry and Government as to why and how it is being done.

Bodies like the Badger Trust and RSPCA will no doubt be keen to play their part in making the distinction among their supporters between peaceful protest and direct action, too.

Wiseman and Muller, a bolt from the blue

Nobody expected German yogurt manufacturer and Robert Wiseman to announce a merger this week.

By Howard Walsh

Who wishes they had bought shares in Robert Wiseman Dairies last week ?  More to the point who would have expected it anyway.

The bolt from the blue — German yoghurt maker Muller making a bid for Wiseman — was not the one many people in the dairy industry would have thought of putting their money on.

And it doesn’t  actually reduce the number of big processors as some people maintain would be good for producers and would maybe reduce the pressure on processors to ‘buy’ market share.

As Minister Jim Paice said at this week’s Semex conference, the constant price squabbles along the supply chain have to stop. But we’ll have to wait for that one.

Clearly First Milk is now in a better place – not that it hasn’t been since Mustoe and Allum came to the helm – with a potential £28m to spend from the sale of its 10 per cent stake in Wiseman.

Farmers Guardian business editor, Howard Walsh

NFU elections: Who said democracy was dead?

ON February 22, the 90 or so members of the NFU will be presented with a clear choice as they gather in a stuffy Birmingham hotel room to elect their president for the next two years.

To vote for Peter Kendall. Or  nobody.

Mr Kendall is expected to win.

The nominations for the three NFU officeholder positions –  which also reveal that Mr Kendall’s deputy Meurig Raymond faces only two challengers for his post – must reflect, in part, a satisfaction with the current rude health of the NFU and the job being done by its leadership.

Mr Kendall has his critics, most vociferously from within the South West livestock community.

But most people connected to the NFU – including many for whom his hi-tech, sustainable intensification vision of farming does not sit easily – acknowledge the excellent job he has done over the past six years.

He has led with authority, been a superb communicator of his positive, progressive farming message and undoubtedly has the ear of Government, as the recent Oxford Ministerial speeches show.

Mr Raymond has also been seen as an effective number two, albeit operating on a much lower profile.

As some posters on our website put it this week, ‘if ain’t broke…’

Why change a winning team, particularly – as both president and deputy have pointed out – with two ‘massive’ unresolved issues in the form of CAP reform and bovine TB still to grapple with?

Nonetheless, the absence of even a single challenger to Mr Kendall – not even a Handley or a Mead, let alone a Raymond or a Jones – has raised questions this week about the state of democracy within the NFU (after all, even Vladamir Putin will face some challengers when he stands for the Russian presidency the following month!).

None of these questions is bigger than who will succeed Mr Kendall when he does finally step down, probably – but not, he insists, definitely – in two year’s time?

The lack of competition appears to betray doubts among the leading candidates themselves, and the voting council, about their ability to fill Mr Kendall’s shoes?

Practical considerations come into it, too, as one potential candidate told me. He highlighted the commitment required to even stand for election. The hustings alone demand a whole week away from the farm business – a possible deterrent for some.

The ‘farm business versus NFU’ question has a wider context. Serving as an officeholder leaves little time to focus on the business. Another council member –  who would appear to be a prime candidate for future leader – recently told me he simply could not spare the time away from his business to do the job. Only those willing and able to effectively step away from their business can do the job.

There is not much the NFU could do about that.

But a more uncomfortable complaint for the NFU, which traditionally faces calls for one-member, one-vote at election time, is about the electoral process itself.

There have been dark mutterings, notably from ex-livestock chairman and Devon farmer Richard Haddock, of a cosy ‘stitch up’ between the council and leadership to maintain the status quo.

It’s not just the permanently disgruntled who want change. Commenting on our website this week,  Guy Smith, who, unlike Mr Haddock, remains close to the NFU hierarchy, called for a re-think of the electoral process, arguing that NFU democracy is ‘no longer fit for purpose’.

This debate is much more about the future than the present, which appears in good hands.

It is therefore significant that a much healthier seven names will appear on the ballot paper for the vice president slot, where Gwyn Jones will have to defend his position against, among others, livestock chairman Alistair Mackintosh and former VP Paul Temple, who is also standing for deputy.

The races for deputy and vice president could yet spice up the February elections – as Mr Temple said, they are all about who will be the next president of the NFU.

Who said democracy was dead?

What do you think? Are the NFU nominations a sign that all is well? Or is reform needed?

@alistairdriver