Uncertainties of Springtime

The idea to combine farming, forestry and conservation grants under one umbrella is certainly a good one and may be worth the wait. The devil is in the detail. A recent rumour suggested that we would have a single application window, creating boom and bust in the annual workload for the private and public sector alike, followed by frustration and disappointment for many. This has been the experience of RSS applicants in recent years. The SEERAD experience. Sometimes 90% of applicants are successful, sometimes only 20%, as in 2006.

More crucially, SEERAD also administers the Single Farm Payment (SFP), paid annually on a given date. In reality, a proportion of the total is paid after much politic-ing and negotiation, around about the expected time, and we are supposed to be grateful to our politicians for arranging it. SEERAD could have arranged that SFP is paid by BACS transfer on a quarterly or monthly basis, the more regular income helping with cashflow and removing much of the uncertainty involved. It chose not to.

A subsequent forestry rumour was that applications would be processed on a quarterly basis, evening out the workload over a year, and giving applicants the chance to quickly improve and re-submit an application that has just failed. This is the traditional Forestry Commission experience, where a bit of give and take is allowed and your local woodland officer has sufficient flexibility and authority to make things work. A much better system altogether.

It would be good to think that, when the different schemes are being devised, administrators will choose to combine the best aspects of the different organisations involved, and produce a system that gives confidence to those who make their living in the countryside. If they do this, things may be all right after all. Country people are forever optimistic - we have to be.

Victor Clements,

Scottish Native Woods