ADAS (Hansard, 28 June 1995)

§ Mr. Deva
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he has reached any conclusions as to the future of the ADAS agency; and if he will make a statement. [31861]

§ Mr. Waldegrave
The Secretary of State and I have now agreed that a number of ADAS's functions are suitable for privatisation. We have however concluded that certain of the non-research and development functions that ADAS carries out for MAFF and Welsh Office—about two thirds of this work in all, including most of that in connection with the agri-environment schemes—should remain in the public sector. We have accordingly agreed to prepare for eventual privatisation a body which comprises all the ADAS commercial consultancy services, its laboratory services and the remainder of the non-research and development work performed for Departments. As to the present ADAS research centres, ownership of the sites and their facilities and arrangements for future access to both by the privatised body will be further considered. We expect, however, that the privatised body would continue to manage a proportion of our Departments' existing programmes at those sites.
ADAS has met all its financial targets since it was launched as an agency. We have concluded that the precise timing for privatisation of such a body should be determined in the light of continuing improvements in its financial performance, particularly as regards its commercial consultancy services. We have accordingly decided that ADAS will be required to recover 100 per cent. of its costs for advisory services in 1996–97 through charges to its commercial customers. If this and other 697W objectives are met in 1996–97, we shall proceed to privatisation in the course of 1997. We do not exclude an earlier disposal if the agency's performance warrants it.
A management team has indicated that it would be interested in preparing a management and employee buy-out of a business similar to that described above. We welcome this signal from the agency's staff of their confidence in its future but will, of course, consider all bids that may be forthcoming for that business or for parts of it.

§ Mr. Mark Robinson
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what performance targets he has set for ADAS for 1995–96. [31860]

§ Mr. Waldegrave
The Secretary of State and I have decided that for 1995–96, ADAS will be asked to recover 73 per cent. of its costs for advisory services through charges to commercial customers; the balance will be met by my Department. The other financial, efficiency and service delivery targets for ADAS for 1995–96 will be:

to achieve full cost recovery from all other work;

to reduce the total cost per hour in contract delivery in real terms by 2 per cent.:

to maintain average debtor days at or better than 55 days:

to meet 90 per cent. of Research and Development project milestones;

to continue to achieve customer satisfaction as measured by customer surveys.