Government ministers are forever going on about their desire to cut red tape.
The problem they face, however, is that it is every civil servant's instinct to do just the opposite. When it comes to red tape, they just can't get enough of it!
There can be no better example than the impending "grower initiative" - an EU-backed outgoers scheme designed to give sugar beet growers the chance to surrender up to 10% of national quota in return for a compensation cheque worth almost £30/t.
Notices of the scheme have already been posted on the RPA website and application forms will be sent to growers next week.
There's just one problem. The grower initiative is not actually going to happen - and DEFRA knows this!
This is because the EU regulation says that, if the processor agrees to surrender more quota than beet growers, then the grower initiative is null and void.
British Sugar has already told DEFRA it plans to relinquish 13.5% of national quota next year. Indeed it has been in detailed discussion with DEFRA and the NFU on the best way to achieve this.
DEFRA's decision to launch the grower initiative is a bureaucratic nonsense. Not only will it get growers' hopes up, it will also create extra red tape and lead to yet more confusion. It is unnecessary and smacks of "jobs for the boys".
Comments (1)
Does the 'initiative' assume that DEFRA and presumably RPA staff shuffling the red tape know what sugar beet is?
One of the tales doing the rounds during the single payments fiasco was of a farmer who telephoned the RPA for advice on recording details of his sugar beet area, to which the response was, allegedly, "What's sugar beet?"
Comment left on October 18, 2007 11:28 PM
Posted on October 18, 2007 23:28