If my parents' experience is anything to go by, it's not just the Home Office which is in administrative chaos. This week they received a letter from Defra's Rural Payments Agency (something which always strikes fear into the hearts of small farmers) informing them that a mistake had been made in calculating the area of two of their fields. The letter included an elaborate map together with the news of the miscalculation. It declared:Old Field Area 3.58 hectares New Field Area 3.58 hectares
Old Field Area 1.09 hectares New Field Area 1.09 hectares
So that's clear then and well worth sending a letter out. This comes on top of another letter received a few weeks ago telling them that they would be receiving 80% of their Single Payment Scheme payment. And the next day they received one telling them they had sent it out. This is bureaucracy gone mad. No wonder the cost of government has doubled since 1997. DEFRA is completely out of control and is serving only the interests of the incompetents who work within in it. It is a self generating bureaucracy, which needs to be curbed. It is simply astonishing that there are more DEFRA
PS Brace yourself for a dramatic rise in Foreign Office cockups now Ma Beckett is in the hotseat. I wonder what she's doing this bank holiday. Parking her caravan on the front lawn at Chevening I should imagine!
A friend of mine works for another off-shoot Agency of Defra - the Environment Agency. Last week they went on a "Circus-training" course! Officially something to do with helping the left and right hemispheres of the brain to communicate better...
ReplyDeletePersonally I think it was to enhance their clowning skills so as to improve communication with their political masters.
RM
I seem to remeber it being said that there are more NHS bureaucrats than beds in the NHS - though quite what was meant by 'NHS bureaucrat' is unbeknown to me.
ReplyDeleteSo, Iain, do you think farmers should be getting these payments at all?
ReplyDelete"which needs to be curbed"
ReplyDeleteI suppose that's a start, Mr Dale, but can't you just come right out with it and state clearly that DEFRA - like at least half of the Departments of State - needs simply to be closed down, with all the tax-eaters that they contain being issued with P45's.
Then we could make a start on cutting taxes at last.
There's more than one per farm? Isn't that something we should be shouting from the roof tops? Statistics can be made to lie, but that sort of pure numbers fact is worth shouting about!
ReplyDeletePerhaps she's digesting my comments about her in the little red book.
ReplyDeleteErr, so with approx. 7000 Civil Servants in Defra, you imply that there are less than 7000 farms in country... is that correct?
ReplyDeleteThe SFP has been a total disaster, like everything involving the EU and Labour. The paperwork I hear is outrageous, and most payments are late.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if our friends the management consultants are involved deeply in DEFRA ? Busy reading "Plundering the public sector" by David Craig right now, and I almost feel sorry for the civil service. And of course some what upset about where my taxes have gone.
ReplyDeleteI'd just like to point out that the anonymous poster at the top of the page who signs himself RM is not The Remittance Man, a member of the Clan Remittance or an employee of Remittance Holdings or any of its subsidiaries.
ReplyDeleteBeing the egomaniacal loon that he is The Remittance Man would never post anonymously.
I trust this clarifies any confusion.
RM
I was told told by a Shadow Minister that Defra had all the dregs working in their department, that they had tried and failed to get jobs in other offices, then ended up in Defra as their last choice, hence the calibre of staff and these cock ups.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure why that is, their remit is to important.
Hectare? Is that one of those daft Eurothingies?
ReplyDeleteWhat can't anyone speak in English any more?
Ellee, The government doesn't believe that DEFRA is important -- the country is their enemy.
ReplyDeleteHave you heard about the farmer who was paid £21. million by Defra - he only wanted £35,000!
ReplyDelete